


The Fall of Hyperion

by Chanel_Pirate



Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: Alcohol, Body Horror, Brief Mention of Past Daniel/OMC, Canon Compliant, Daddy Issues, Dramatic Irony, Drug Abuse, Gaslighting, Graphic Depictions of Torture, Insanity, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Child Abuse, Power Dynamics, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 14:37:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11382234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chanel_Pirate/pseuds/Chanel_Pirate
Summary: "My gods dwell in temples made with hands." -De Profundis, Oscar Wilde.





	The Fall of Hyperion

 

 

Daniel is writing.

 

The lantern light is dim, and grows dimmer still in the uncommon absence of his notice. The nib of his pen flies across the page.

 

There is a vial of laudanum in front of him, by the inkwell. Next to it, there is another: smaller, rose-coloured.

 

He hesitates for a moment over the page before plunging his pen into the well. Ink spills over when he roughly withdraws it. His scrawl is aggressive as he signs off on the tear-stained page.

 

For the crimes committed against him, he can only prescribe death.

 

One life for another - for the last time.

 

He dies into birth.

 

 

*

 

 

His hands are pale.

 

Of late, Daniel has made a habit of observing mundane things.

 

He observes:

 

His hands are pale, and this is odd because he remembers them to be burnt by the Maghreb sun.

 

There is a pile of books and papers set on the desk at the far end of the room. Usually, they are in alignment. Today, they are disturbed.

 

He is holding a vial of blood, and it is cracked.

 

His hands are pale, they are sticky, and it is dark. In front of him lies a criminal, a sacrifice.

 

In front of him lies a man dead. Hints of lines seem to glow from his ruptured torso. It does not seem possible.

 

It’s too dark, and he can’t connect the sequence of events that brought him here.

 

His breath comes too fast. His hand tightens of its own accord, and the vial cracks. He’s making a mess. He’s wasted a day’s work – or an evening’s, at least.  The only way he has bothered to tell the time in the last few days is in occasional glances through the windows. Of course, this is only relevant at surface level. Right now, he is – 

 

Where is Alexander? Alexander had been right there-

 

He turns in the near darkness. The light. The light – he has let it go out. He has been careless. His throat constricts.

 

Daniel attempts to collect himself. It is only darkness, he thinks. Only darkness, and no more abhorrent than anything else.

 

His breath catches in his chest, stomach turning as he moves towards where he knows there is a candle. He drops the vial as he fumbles for a tinderbox, fingers clumsy as they fail to find purchase on either. He’s making such a mess, he thinks, blood spilling. He squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself it’s nothing, it’s nothing, if he gets it together for long enough to just light a candle-

 

And then, the light returns, throwing the Baron’s features into sharp relief.

 

“I trust all is well?”

 

Alexander snaps a tinderbox shut and strides towards the centre of the room, where the body lies on a slab. He grimaces as he takes in the state of the prisoner, and sighs in exasperation at the sight of Daniel.

 

Daniel supposes he deserves it. Alexander throws a cloth at him. He manages to catch it, sheepish.

 

He tries to pay attention to what Alexander is saying, although he still feels separate. He avoids looking in Alexander’s general direction. The Baron has been saying something – hasn’t he? 

 

“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what’s happened.”

 

He stares at the far wall. His hands are shaking. Why are his hands shaking? The cloth lies on the floor beside him, and Daniel doubts it will have been of much use anyway.

 

Daniel tries to bring himself back to the present. Has he already managed to annoy the Baron? In any case, it wouldn’t do to seem rude.

 

“We have but limited resources, I'm afraid, and we simply cannot afford to waste any more vitae than we already have.”

 

Daniel clenches a slippery fist - the shaking. He tries to breathe. He turns to meet Alexander’s eyes, his mouth forming words-

 

To tell him what? He catches himself. To be even more patient than he has been with him? That he is overdue some laudanum? To consider that this is only his fourth murder? He shudders that arriving at this number is something that requires thought. He tries again.

Somehow he meets Alexander’s eyes. Daniel thinks he can see either pity or concern.

 

He despises it. The old anger rises.

 

“I apologise for the deviation from our schedule,” Daniel manages to say. He moves towards the door. “And I appreciate that the purpose of this is to save my own neck.”

 

“They are the dregs of humanity. They are expendable. Their deaths grants us both a chance,” Alexander reminds. There is no admonishment in his tone.

 

“Yes,” Daniel says, “I thank you for the opportunity.”

 

Alexander’s brow furrows. Daniel thinks he may have slurred the words, but cares for nothing but taking a bath in this moment.

 

“I expect you to be on form tomorrow.”

 

Daniel nods and turns to leave.

 

“And Daniel? Far be it for me to comment - I feel it fair to discourage you against the use of further laudanum before we perform the rituals.”

 

Daniel nods again, without turning. Grinding his teeth, he leaves the room.

 

He does not remember the last time he has partaken of laudanum, on this day.

 

A faint laugh escapes him.

 

It seems that his observations of the mundane do not include that which is inconvenient.

*

 

 

He is walking alone through what appears to be the chancel. His steps echo through nothingness as the vast room pulses around him. Blue lanterns cast a mottled incandescence on to the walls. He does not question Alexander’s absence.

 

He approaches the central platform.

 

He thinks he might suffocate on the thick air in this place, so much like an alien, cursed womb.

 

He surveys his surroundings for a moment; then – as though his spirit has been torn free of his body and flung through the air – his field of vision accelerates through the viaduct before him, and a sense of inescapable malaise spreads through him like bile as he finds himself in a chamber, and there – glowing like a black sun – _there_ –

 

Blue light turns into red, disembodied flesh, putrid and glistening with ichor, and his terror paralyses him as a deafening roar surges from all around, an awful inhuman screech coming from within him –

 

Daniel screams, he can’t see, he is awake, where is he, why can’t he see?

 

He tries to take deep breaths against the rapid beating of his heart, suspended between sleep and waking. He is drenched in sweat. Pulling off his nightshirt, he gets up to check the oil in his lamp - and, dazed, goes back to bed.

 

The orb, wrapped in cloth as instructed, looms on the desk, curled into the corner of his field of vision. Its presence is overbearing. He thinks of the day Alexander had shown him the Inner Sanctum. At the time, he had reacted with wonder. As the days pass, however, he is increasingly disturbed by its internal incongruities.

 

The orb. As his breathing slows, he takes stock of the situation. He is in Castle Brennenburg, Prussia. He may or may not still be working for the British Museum, under the auspices of which he had joined the fated expedition to Algeria. He is hunted by a Shadow, the Guardian of the orb from the tomb.

 

In all probability, he will never again wake up in his bed in Mayfair.

 

People are dead because of him. More people will die. And if he does not cease to be negligent in his work, so will Alexander, who deserves it least. He who has helped him, comforted him… he swallows a pang of shame.

 

Daniel’s attention draws back to his physical condition. His shivers do not abate. A wave of nausea comes over him, and it doesn’t seem to be going away. After a couple of false starts, he manages to get up, stumbling towards the washbasin. Almost falling face-first into it, he grasps at its edges, and wills himself to stand, for his breathing to still. Some water may do him good.

 

Instead, he begins retching, and manages to pull out the chamber pot across the room just in time to empty the meagre contents of his stomach into it.

 

He finds that only laudanum can still his shaking and quell his headaches, improving his functioning, despite Alexander’s repeated objections.

 

He moves to retrieve some – what a state he’s made of the guest room, he has to commend Alexander’s tolerance – when he is stopped still, as though pierced with an arrow, at the sight of a horrible figure before him.

 

It is pale and emaciated, broad-shouldered, muscle and bone starkly delineating skin, with matted, wild hair and sunken, mad eyes. Daniel cowers, seized by a primal terror, mouth opening into a scream, only to notice that the figure does the same.

 

He falls back on his arse and laughs and laughs and laughs.

 

A farce fitting to this mockery, that he would be so frightened by a looking glass.

 

 

*

 

 

It is an overcast morning, and sparse light filters through the dining hall.

 

Daniel has not seen any of the servants, in recent days. He cannot say he has missed the strange, cloaked figures.

 

More to the point, the Baron does not seem too happy with him.

 

“Much obliged if you could pass the preserves,” Daniel mutters when Alexander’s glaring gets to be a bit much.

 

He thinks he is making a good show of pretending to be interested in his food this morning. He does not worry about being wasteful. Either way, it tastes of guilt.

 

Soon it won’t matter.

 

Among the details he has begun noticing: it is the infinitesimal degree of a slouch in the set of Alexander’s shoulders, coupled with an undone button at the neck of his work-shirt, that tells Daniel that the Baron must be almost as tired as he is.

 

When he had failed to rise at dawn and convene for breakfast in the hall not long thereafter, as has become customary, Alexander had come looking for him. This doesn't surprise Daniel, considering his state the previous night.

 

Alexander had found him on the floor where he had dropped, nude, with an empty vial of laudanum he must have reached before falling asleep. To bring the image to unwholesome completion, his bile had dried and tangled itself into his hair. As he slept on, Alexander had drawn him a bath right there. Daniel, in turn, had a rather rude awakening, submerged. Alexander had not said a word, seething as he left the room.

 

It seems that he is always a mess for Alexander to clean up.

 

It seems that everything is always a mess with him.

 

Alexander has the grace not to mention any of it, leaving Daniel to his shame as they eat in silence. In fact, the Baron does not deign to meet his eyes. It doesn’t go unnoticed by Daniel that a lot of the food seems to find itself near him, despite this.

 

The glances thrown his way do not go unnoticed either, though Daniel is sure they are meant to be discreet.

 

Daniel decides that he has pretended to eat a sufficient amount, and makes to rise, staring down at his plate. The Baron finally speaks.

 

“We will meet in the back hall in an hour. Be ready. It will be a long day.”

 

And with that, Alexander strides out of the room.

 

Well. He has not been expecting more than that.

 

 

*

 

 

He spends most of the hour in his rooms.

 

He writes in his journal, in the style to which he has become accustomed. Angle, omission, emphasis. He won’t be able to manage it, otherwise, without this warped confessional. Certain things are better left unremembered. The orb sits at the corner of his desk, harmless-seeming.

 

Daniel chuckles at the thought that there will be anything of this left for posterity. Is all this not a fool’s errand? Will darkness not prevail, with him caught within it forever?

 

He slams the journal shut. He throws a surreptitious look at the cabinet.

 

He decides that a draught of laudanum right now would be a luxury rather than a necessity. There is work to be done. The Shadow draws near.

 

The orb sits there.

 

The craving abates, and settles in the back of his mind, gnawing. It occurs to him that this is undesirable, but he banishes the thought almost as soon as it is formed. He stares into the abyss from the precipice daily. Are worries such as dependencies not trivial? All is trivial but the work.

 

The work. He acknowledges that there is something of the euphemism about this nomenclature.

 

He catches a fleeting memory of Alexander washing vomit out of his hair, and cringes.

 

He is undeserving, an ungrateful waif, squandering Alexander’s efforts with his childish outbursts.

 

He must learn the process. He must become expert in remaining focused on the task at hand. He must be able to trust himself, and to be trusted to continue in parallel so they may double the product. It will all be for nothing otherwise.

 

He may even be able to return to London. Would he see Alexander again? Would he want to?

 

He catches himself in daydreams and roots himself to the moment. Focus will have to be his lesson of the day.

 

It pains him. He does not wish to disappoint Alexander. Yet he resents the man for leading him to murder. Murder of vile creatures, murder that they both may live, but murder nonetheless. The thought of it sickens him.

 

There is no choice, he tells himself. And the Baron is only doing this to help him. Daniel has no doubt that Alexander must find the undertaking as vile as he does, and that the moral resentment is mutual. After all, Alexander’s life was not on the line before Daniel’s arrival.

 

The phantasm of his father enters his thoughts unbidden. Daniel wishes he could stop thinking of the past. Every time he thinks he has succeeded in forgetting his father, he returns. Every time he thinks he has succeeded in reassuring himself that his sister had been in the hands of competent carers, he fails. He thought he had surpassed the guilt of leaving to London, and beyond. He thought he had surpassed that hatred.

 

He had gone as far as Algeria to escape those memories, yet they return, have returned in the waters off Gibraltar, in the transit from Constantinople, in the dark of the tomb. Still they return whenever he sees a looking glass, seeming to reflect the scars from the beatings right through his clothes, and he imagines he sees marks branded into his skin. They return with Alexander’s patience, still more with his care.

 

Alexander has seen him. And he has seen his scars. And still he remains.

 

Focus.

 

He thinks about Hazel.

 

It occurs to him that he needs to go.

 

Go forth and murder well.

 

 

*

 

 

Daniel begins putting away the instruments. His renewed approach to the work seemed to please Alexander. He has followed his instruction to the letter.

 

He hopes this will stave off the Shadow. Its presence winds itself about the edges of his mind, its existence creeping towards his own, overlapping. Steady, while he himself balances on a needle’s point.

 

He is wiping down a piece of equipment when Alexander approaches him.

 

“Daniel, leave that for now.”

 

Daniel suppresses a jump. He swallows, and notes that his tongue is sandpaper. This could be due to the laudanum. He has earned some today, he thinks, and forces his eyes onto Alexander.

 

“Might you accompany me for a moment? You’ve done very well. Come!”

 

Daniel turns to ask, not connecting the words. He startles into silence when he notices how close Alexander is standing.

 

His tongue scrapes against his teeth and he wishes for laudanum.

 

The Baron looks amused, probably at his expense. He attempts to smile through his shame.

 

Alexander shakes his head, and walks away.

 

He is cheerful as he leads Daniel to the prison. Daniel is not sure that he is the sole cause for this good humour. He wonders, not for the first time, as to the Baron's sanity - circumstances notwithstanding.

 

More than in any other situation, the screams and the begging impact him most just as they reach the prison. Daniel knows of the system of pipes, amplifying sound, terrifying the convicts. Still it never fails to disarm him. It sometimes causes him to wonder whether those rats could be human beings capable of despair, and deserving of solace. Of course, the thoughts never last for long - not with the grounding sight of Alexander near him.

 

The reason behind the progressive dwindling of the screams encroaches. What happens when logic asserts itself? As the population of the barony declines, what will happen to the probability of the prisoner’s innocence? Or is it better to forget?

 

They reach the inner nave. As usual his eye catches that of the corpse in the alcove, hanging as if in continued repentance. He thinks about that corpse, on occasion.

 

Alexander notices the direction of his gaze and quickly directs him to a cell.

 

“You may recall,” Alexander says as he stops in front of it. “That I neglected to mention what happens after a session of torture.”

 

He seems eager, as though about to unveil a great work and secret in one. As though he and Daniel are co-conspirators in some incredible undertaking. Daniel supposes that they are. He would be humbled, were it not so grisly.

 

“That is correct,” Daniel says, mustering his attention. “I have never seen what becomes of them. Though I do also recall seeing several of them more than once.”

 

“Precisely!” Alexander grins in a gruesome caricature of the pride of a schoolmaster toward a gifted pupil. He strokes the door before them. “We only have limited material to work with, after all. You must have wondered how we may… conserve our resources.”

 

Daniel nods, walking forward to look though the bars in the door's small window. Inside is the man they have spent the better part of today working on –

 

Torturing. You were torturing him. Don’t forget that.

 

A wretched man - an arsonist, murderer, and philanderer, wretched as he lies weeping, wretched as he lies bleeding, and Daniel could not be gladder that this is what it has come to for this vermin.

 

Daniel grips the bars in front of him, barely noticing that Alexander is right next to him. Observing him.

 

“You will notice,” the Baron supplies, “that he has stopped the shouting. The _begging_. The proclamations of innocence.”

 

Daniel stares through the bars, as fixated on the criminal as Alexander is on him.

 

“He has lost his hope,” Daniel almost whispers.

 

“Yes,” Alexander sounds like he has been holding his breath, and this breaks Daniel out of his reverie. The Baron’s gaze is intense. Alexander’s eyes are fascinating; he has only ever seen that colour on that Tuareg guide. The hue of a cat’s - or of a snake’s. His attention wanders back to the Baron's speech. To his mouth. “And hope is the only thing keeping them alive. The more potent the hope, the more potent the suffering at its apex.”

 

Daniel nods again. He turns his head back to the prisoner, reluctant to tear his eyes away. Alexander frightens him when he is like this. He can't put his finger on it, but there is something there, in the reverence with which he speaks of pain.

 

“So the more hope they have… the more effective the rituals.”

 

Alexander’s smile is feral. “Exactly. So it follows; we must return to them their hope.”

 

Daniel steps away from the door. “And how is that to be done?”

 

“Watch.”

 

He does so as Alexander moves to unlock the door. Before turning the key, Alexander looks back to him.

 

“I’m going to need you to restrain the prisoner if he struggles. If you will.”

 

“Yes, Alexander.”

 

Alexander throws the door of the tiny cell open. The prisoner does not look up, and hardly pulls against his chains as they enter the cell. The stench strikes Daniel, permeates his lungs, that of decay, blood and sorrow. It is a macabre scent that seems to prevail in the background of these lower levels, everywhere. He has learned to ignore it – whatever that may say about him. Closer to this criminal, it threatens to overpower him.

 

The prisoner whimpers as Alexander kicks him onto his back. Daniel's eyes move from the line of Alexander's boot to the captive. The session with him had been a milder one, designed to draw out the usefulness of the subject for another day. Still, they had more than managed to fulfil their objectives.

 

Alexander pulls the prisoner up on to his knees by the hair. Daniel briefly imagines himself being in that position before the Baron. He catches the wretch’s eye by mistake, and is sobered in an instant. He watches murky listlessness shift into horrified recognition, and knows it will haunt him.

 

And then the screaming begins.

 

“You! Let me go! I’m innocent I - ”

 

Alexander hits the prisoner across the face, and Daniel thinks that it can only be admirable, how intimidating the man can be. At any rate, the prisoner stops struggling. He only lets a pathetic whimper as Alexander lifts him to his feet and pushes him to Daniel.

 

“Hold his arms behind his back.”

 

Daniel makes sure that his grip on the prisoner is strong. The man is so weak, his body slumped with such exhaustion, that he hardly needs to exert much pressure at all. Daniel watches as Alexander produces a small vial of rose liquid from his pockets.

 

“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” He un-stoppers the vial, catching Daniel’s look of confusion. The prisoner’s breath speeds up. “I call this concoction Amnesia. Now, do hold on to him, Daniel. Watch - ”

 

Alexander at once moves forward to close a hand around the prisoner’s throat. Now the struggle comes. Daniel winces at the muffled scream right beside his ear.

 

Alexander meets his eyes. With his other hand he forces the potion down the prisoner’s throat. He wraps his hand around the prisoner’s mouth and nose until he swallows, thrashing. Alexander’s eyes never leave Daniel’s, and he is unnerved and excited, in equal measure. He wishes he possessed the ability to affect people like that. To dominate.

 

The prisoner falls silent, slumping, and Alexander lets go. Still, he looks at Daniel with something he cannot ascertain. Daniel swallows, mouth still dry, uncomfortable.

 

“What happens now? Shall I leave him? It doesn’t look like anything has changed. Did… did it work?”

 

He doesn’t like this silence.

 

Alexander chuckles, which serves to unsettle Daniel further. He was still close, too close. “You mustn’t under-rate its potency. Leave him, so you may see.”

 

Daniel pushes, and the prisoner falls to his knees. He composes himself, slow. Manoeuvring around his chains, he sits facing them, with his back to the wall. Catching his breath, finally he looks up at them, and Daniel notices that his eyes are blank.

 

It is not the emptiness of eyes that have gone dead from seeing too much; this Daniel may be able to cope with. It is the emptiness one may observe upon waking in a new room for the first time. A momentary panic towards the unfamiliar, coupled with a sense of security in the self, at least. No, Daniel thinks; this man does not expect fear upon his waking. He does not expect pain. He is merely confused. He is newly born.

 

Worst of all, is that he does not shrink back at the sight of them.

 

“Say, I don’t expect you fellows know I happen to have got here? Some night it must have been. I can hardly remember my own name!” The man laughs, his eyes sparkling with merriment. He seeks Daniel’s eyes, friendly.

 

Daniel feels his skin crawl and he notices that Alexander is sizing him up, watching for his reaction.

 

The convict must have been a jovial man, Daniel thinks. Before they took him. Before they began his slow death. He must have been happy. Will he remember that?

 

Curiosity. Earlier. The Baron was looking at him with curiosity, he realises, a jigsaw clicking into place. Why?

 

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” The man’s laugh is fainter now. He lifts his manacled hands, pulling at the chains. “Now this is quite something. Mind helping out?”

 

Daniel suddenly feels ill. He fears he may be sick as he sees the hints of panic begin to appear in the convict’s eyes. Weeping can be heard through the pipes.

 

“Come. Our task here is done,” Alexander says, steering Daniel out of the cell with a hand on his lower back. The touch roots Daniel, and he thinks he may make it out of here without being sick for the second time in twenty-four hours.

 

As Alexander shuts and locks the door behind them, the convict calls again. Alexander motions for Daniel to listen.

 

“Hey, what’s this? Have we had a misunderstanding? Come back, let’s talk. We’ll settle this.”

 

Alexander quirks an eyebrow at him as the prisoner’s voice rises.

 

“I’m sure it can’t have been that bad! Come on! What are these other voices here? Why are they crying? Hello!”

 

“Shall we go?” Daniel forces through his teeth. He can take it no longer.

 

“Yes, let’s.”

 

In the lift, Daniel stares ahead, steadfast. He looks forward to scrubbing himself clean, and taking that overdue draught of laudanum. The prisoner's friendly look imprints itself into his mind. He would prefer any look of terror.

 

“Do you see, Daniel? The rituals will yield fantastic results from him when the reality of his situation arrives, and when no recollection comes or is offered to him,” Alexander almost whispers, as though reading his mind. It won't surprise Daniel if he can indeed do that.

 

“Do you see, then, how hope is stronger than fear?”

 

Daniel shudders.

 

It is better to forget.

 

 

*

 

 

He is being beaten again, beaten to the limits of his endurance, without knowing why – as usual.

 

He only knows that he is grateful that it is not the belt today.

 

He is happy, at least, that he has managed to distract their father, allowing Hazel to escape to their meeting point assigned for occasions such as this. He does not worry too much about her walking alone; this summer is warm and dry, and unlikely to irritate her humours. Besides, the place is only five minutes away.

 

He would laugh, but he knows that if he does the cane against the backs of his knees will increase in force. He wants to laugh because even now, he is only thinking of Hazel’s safety. He despises the man behind him, and does not remember a time he has not in all his ten and seven years. He makes sure to control his breathing as the strikes fall.

 

Poor snivelling man with more means than sense, throwing money at drink and boxing, Daniel thinks. There are no women – even the nanny was dismissed as soon as Daniel reached relative maturity, freeing up funds for the Ascot, no doubt - no new ‘mothers’ after their mother’s death; though Daniel is certain that he is not unknown to the courtesans.

 

Daniel almost feels sorry for him; not so sorry, however, that it stops the hate rising within him with every strike; not so sorry that it stops him from wanting to take Hazel and go somewhere very far away.

 

He doesn’t, because he knows he is a coward. He wants his father to stop, he wants to turn the rod back onto him, he wants to be looked at with pride by the man who gave him life. There must have been something in this man that his mother once loved.

 

The pain stops, and his father slumps back into an armchair, the ornate one by the fire.

 

Neither of them has said a word. Daniel learned when to speak and when to listen long ago. And now, this silence is telling him to go, instructions that he obeys without question.

 

He thinks he can hear his father weeping as he shuts the door. It hurts beyond mention to walk, and he is sure he looks as though he is lame, but he can hardly crawl, and he must get to Hazel.

 

He makes his way down Bourdon Street, noting the few carriages on the paths. It is a beautiful day. He throws a halfpenny at the newsboy on the corner, hardly glancing at the headline before tucking the paper under his arm.

 

Hazel loves when he explains events and histories to her in further depth, loves discovering more of the world with him in print. She asks him to read to her whenever he has the time, and particularly enjoys being sent off to sleep with a story of distant lands. Sometimes, she teases him by calling him her Scheherazade, and Daniel always responds in some manner of feigned horror.

 

“You would execute me if the tale is inadequate?”

 

Hazel always laughs, on the second and the seventh and the twentieth time she hears it. It makes no difference to her.  Some of Daniel’s fondest memories live among the pages of books and newspapers.

 

He turns onto Grosvenor Street.

 

Dozens of people are carrying on here; yet immediately as he approaches the Square he sees her, and she him. Her face immediately lights up and she runs towards him, throwing her hands around him.

 

“Danny! Oh Danny, I was so worried about you!”

 

She looks up at him with her big green eyes, eyes that are a mirror image of Daniel’s. They are too bright, glistening. Daniel is overcome by the love he feels from this small creature. Smiling, he reaches down to lift her in the air, which never fails to amuse her. He stops before he can get her off the ground, however; his knees feel as though they are about to buckle, and it won’t do to cause a scene.

 

“Don’t worry,” Daniel says through a grimace. “Shall we go sit by the flowers? Come, your favourites are in bloom –”

 

“Daniel, what did he do to you? You’re not walking right –”

 

“Come, let us sit, see how the flowers –”

 

“Bully to the flowers!” Hazel cries, causing a few people to look around at them alarmed, and Daniel sees she is about to burst into tears. He kneels down to give Hazel a hug and she sobs into his shoulder. “And bully to him,” she whispers.

 

Daniel lets her tears run their due course, then sits her down on the bench. He does not know what to say. He sits down beside her, and sets the paper down between them. Hazel does not even look at it, kicking her feet back and forth and staring down with a pout.

 

Daniel’s heart aches.

 

“Is it true you are not going back to Harrow for Michaelmas?” she asks without looking up.

 

Daniel says nothing. Can say nothing.

 

“I heard papa say that you are coming back to take over the household. He said a few other things, but I didn’t understand. He was unkind in what he said,” she continues, probing.

 

Daniel sighs. “No, Hazel, I’m not going back to Harrow for Michaelmas, nor any other term. It has been so decided by myself.”

 

She finally turns to look at him, searching. The cleverness in her eyes is so stark against the plumpness of her cheeks it makes Daniel want to weep.

 

“But what about your studies?”

 

“I am ahead enough. I shall take my exams at the usual time, and I expect I shall be going to King’s just like father,” Daniel says. “Or perhaps find other employment elsewhere. After, who knows? Think of what exciting things may lie in store!”

 

He tries, really he does. For her.

 

She worries at her lip, unconvinced.

 

“I’m not going back to Harrow because I want to spend time with you,” Daniel admits. He knows that is something she does not like to hear. Hazel is an uncommon child in that she is lacking a certain selfishness many children seem to have. She would not want to be a burden. The knowledge of where she will have first heard herself named as such angers him. And after witnessing the situation over the past two weeks, he does not want to leave her to that man.

 

“Danny, it’s fine. I always have doctors and tutors with me anyway. Some are great fun. He’s only this bad when you’re here, usually he just ignores me. You can go right away and have your adventures. Get away from all of this like I know you’ve always wanted to. I am fine.”

 

She lifts the newspaper onto her lap and pretends to peruse the front page. Daniel knows she is not focusing, however.

 

“Hazel…”

 

He simply cannot find words.

 

Hazel looks up at him, expectant.

 

“We will have adventures together, Hazel. Someday I will take you with me,” he whispers, pulling at one of her long brown curls playfully, in the manner that made her laugh endlessly when she was an infant.

 

She does not laugh. She looks back down at the newspaper.

 

“Do not lie to me, ” she says, completely without accusation or judgement.

 

Daniel clenches his jaw. He watches Hazel as she gazes up at the clear sky.

 

“Look, Hazel,” he finally says softly, after some time has passed. “Look how beautiful this season’s blooms are. Haven’t you always loved the Damascus rose?”

 

Hazel’s eyes rise to meet his, but they are both distracted by the London sky turning red.

 

He pauses. He scans his eyes over Grosvenor Square.

 

Mayfair? His family has never lived in London.

 

Voices whisper in languages unknown to man, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere, from within -

 

“What in…?” Daniel looks up. “Hazel, come, right away, I do not like thi –”

 

When he looks back down at Hazel her skin is dappled in blue bruises, her empty eye sockets glaring at him. Blood pours down from her mouth onto the newspaper as a hoarse, inhuman voice emits from it.

 

“Fool,” it says.

 

Daniel shrieks. He notices his face is wet. He cannot look away from what has become of Hazel. He cradles her lifeless body in his arms.

 

Hazel had died in Canterbury.

 

“Hazel!” he screams. He continues staring down at that monstrous, familiar, visage, paying no heed to the decay that suddenly grows all around the square like a carbuncle, bringing with it the stink of pus. The whispers do not abate. He does not notice that only the Damascus rose remains whole among the climbing pestilence.

 

He has never stayed. Not in all the years since.

 

“Return it,” it says, using Hazel’s shrivelled mouth.

 

“Or you will know only more suffering,” it says, commanding him with the pearls that used to be her eyes.

 

“And your soul will be forever damned,” it says as her body shrieks and withers into bones and finally dust in his arms.

 

The sun is dimming, until he is left almost in darkness. He does not move.

 

“Hazel!” he bellows. He squeezes his eyes shut.

 

He opens them in Brennenburg.

 

 

*

 

 

He drinks laudanum until he shakes, and yet it is still not enough.

 

He realises that there is no hope on heaven and earth that he would be able to return to sleep –

 

Her skull grinning at him from the shadows, in every shadow a skull.

 

\- so instead he throws on some clothes, and grabs his lantern.

 

Daniel can sense the orb surveying him as he leaves his rooms.

 

He goes straight to the dungeons. He thinks of a particularly effective method of torture Alexander showed him earlier.

 

Walking past the cells, he deliberates over whom to take. He does not think; rather, he intuits. He cannot feel his own presence within his body. He feels absent. Yet here he is, and he feels real.

 

He pretends he cannot hear the man they have dosed with Amnesia crying and shouting.

 

His hands are shaking. His breath comes as though he has been half-drowned. He cannot think. He can only do.

 

He can only hurt.

 

He must choose someone ready. He must be a worthy disciple.

 

He selects one that is at the end of his tether. He doesn’t care much one way or another, but Alexander will be annoyed with him if he takes someone with a lot of potential vitae remaining.

 

The convict is weak and weary, but his resistance is impressive. Still, Daniel drags him along easily, manoeuvring through the corridors as if in a trance, arriving at the room he desires without quite knowing when he has arrived.

 

“Please!” the convict cries. “I –”

  
“I’m innocent! I’ve done nothing wrong! Woe!” Daniel roars, shaking him. He throws him down at his feet, and they behold the magnificent instrument before them.

 

The wheel stands imposing, spokes dyed red and seasoned with gore. No-one's gotten round to cleaning it, though at this point it no longer matters, he suspects.

 

“No! No no no no please!”

 

“Silence, worm! Kiss my boot and I may spare you!”

 

The convict sobs from the ground, lying prostrate as he cradles the back of his head with his hands, as if this will protect him.

 

“Kill me! Please just kill me!”

 

“Kiss my boot, I said!”

 

Tears streaming down his face, wailing and trembling, the convict shuffles on his knees to face Daniel.

 

Daniel is detached, terrified. He wants another draught of laudanum. He wishes more than anything to step back to a time before any of this. Daniel kicks the face that is lowering to his feet.

 

All he can think is that he is not the one on the floor.

 

He picks up the moaning convict, who is now without front teeth. There is hardly any resistance now. There is no hope. Daniel vaguely recalls that this is not a desirable outcome, that his pacing is all wrong. As Alexander would say, he is lacking finesse. Brutality is to be expected, brutishness to be avoided.

 

Right now, Daniel does not give a damn what Alexander would say.

 

The Shadow will be his own victory.

 

He pushes the wretch against the wheel. Daniel sees his dead eyes, and feels nothing. He ties the limbs against the spokes so that the convict is stretched across the wheel, suspended off the ground.

 

There is no struggle as Daniel tests the chains and restraints. The convict is praying frantically, he notes with disgust, invoking his absent god, his bloody chin against his chest, tears mixing with blood and landing red on his torso.

The prayers infuriate Daniel. What right does such scum have, to feel he has the right to call on God? Why is such a vile murderer of children, according to Alexander, able to ask for mercy, yet he himself is not?

 

Murderer. Hazel.

 

Hazel.

 

Daniel shakes with rage. He is grateful that the glyphs do not have to be repainted, because he can wait no longer.

 

“Silence, I said,” he mutters, surveying the tools available to him. A hammer, and a cat o’ nine tails with small blades attached to each strand. 

 

This will do.

 

The convict continues whimpering and it only serves to exacerbate Daniel’s headache. He picks up the cat o’ nine tails.

 

“I said silence!” he shouts, surprising even himself as the victim looks up, startled, the cat o' nine tails swinging in a wide arc.

 

It lands across the chest. He remembers the instructions he has been given, that he must be careful not to get too close to the neck or it will be over far too soon. 

 

Daniel views the bladed ends with curiosity: at the force needed to pull them out, and at the way drawing out the exit could prove as effective as the strike itself.

 

Alexander was right. There is a delicate craft to this.

 

The convict wails and starts praying again. Daniel is beginning to tune the sounds out, but he is fury itself.

 

Why must it always come back to Alexander, or to anybody else?

 

He strikes. The cat o’ nine tails sticks rather too hard and he has some difficulty pulling it out.

 

Why can’t he be the holder of knowledge?

 

Again, and he is exerting such force that air is forced from his lungs.

 

The powerful, rather than the helpless?

 

Again. He tastes metal as blood sprays in his face. A high buzzing noise in his skull obscures the howling.

 

Why is he such a coward?

 

Again, and as he watches deep red grids appear among ribbons of flesh, he knows there is a salvation in this. He knows that he is but an emissary of justice.

 

Why did he let Hazel go?

 

Again, and as he pulls the cat o' nine tails a tearing sound rends the air.

 

His arm hurts, and he continues until he can swing no more. He is sore. He cannot see for the haze in his eyes, and he is aware that he is soaking.

 

He sets the cat o’ nine tails back down, and looks at the thing suspended on the wheel that was once human. It is still alive, and it moans at him. He thinks it may still be asking him to help it.

 

Daniel feels no pity. He turns back to peruse the hammer. Would it be too much, at this point?

 

“Monster.”

 

Daniel’s head snaps back up toward the red, slimy creature before him. Its breath rasps, trembling with shock, its chest rising and falling rapidly. He is almost sure he tore through the thorax to the lungs, if the gaps are any indication – and it whispers again.

 

Daniel approaches the creature. The hammer appears to be in his hands.

 

“I beg your pardon?” he whispers. Dangerous.

  
“I said, monster!” it roars with the last of it strength, its unharmed face set in a grimace, eyes bright with fury. “You horsefucking shit-son of a witch’s cunt!”

 

The creature spits at him in the face, dark red blood hitting Daniel's cheek.

 

“You will pay for that,” Daniel grits through his teeth, wiping his face, shaking his aching arm to drop excess gore to the floor. His body aches. It aches. Wherever he is drawing his power from, it is not from here.

 

There is a beat of absolute silence. The creature gives Daniel a toothless grin, and its shaking intensifies.

 

Daniel realises that it is laughing. Laughing at him.

 

Daniel sees white.

 

The hammer comes down on an elbow, forcing it between the spokes backwards. The laughing changes to screaming.

 

Screaming that is only matched by Daniel’s shouting.

 

“Monster, I? You anoint me monster, child killer?”

 

A knee.

 

Denial. Screams of denial.

 

“You take innocents! You defile them! You murder them!”

 

Another elbow.

 

Howls of, No! 

 

Bellowed oaths. 

 

Daniel screams to be heard over them.

 

“And yet… you… call… me… monster!”

 

Daniel brings down the hammer with all the power he has. He barely hears the sickening ripping and popping as the creature’s knee collapses into the shin, the lower leg only held on by skin, as it hangs at an unnatural angle among the spokes of the wheel.

 

Daniel throws down the hammer, taking heaving breaths.

 

Silence falls. It is only interrupted on occasion by the sound of draining blood, and the weak whimpers of the contorted monstrosity hanging on the wheel. Daniel looks at his creation.

 

He wonders if this will appease the shadow.

 

He wonders if it will be enough for Hazel to be left in peace.

 

He wonders if this is a work Alexander will admire.

 

Just then, a rush of sensation returns to Daniel. He becomes aware of how tired and sore he is. He is so wet with… With…

 

And he looks back up at the wheel, and sees the human caricature he has created.

 

And it is looking right back at him. And it is not so much grimacing in pain as it is… smirking at him.

 

Daniel’s heart drops through his chest. He runs.

 

He runs and does not look back until he is at the transept, where convicts lie dead in their gibbets, where one feels as in the belly of the beast. He throws himself onto his knees, grasping his blood-caked hair.

 

He screams and screams, until his voice is gone, and then shouts an invocation to the Guardian of the orb.

 

He kneels, trembling, until the last of the echoes fade.

 

He is so cold.

 

 

*

 

 

In the looking glass he sees a red, dead thing with flat, mean eyes.

 

He draws a bath and scrubs at himself until the water is red also, until he draws blood.

 

He takes laudanum and falls asleep thinking of the purr in Alexander’s voice as he tells him of torture.

 

It soothes him like a firm caress along the throat.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Things do not fall into place in his mind anymore.

 

He remembers endless sands, ancient cities with modern citizenry. He remembers tomes and magnifying glasses, maps and pith helmets that are all but useless in harsh winds.

 

None of the details seem to remain, though he has seen them. They shift.

 

He remembers the Tuareg guide, but not his name. He hides disappointment when the man tells him, good-naturedly and in demotic French, that the Arabic he knows is useless and formal.

 

He has always been proud of his languages. Daniel rebuts creatively and in the manner of a native, which impresses the Tuareg, but not enough to cause him to defer to his dialectal skill.

 

The memory is clear, if just because it's one of the more interesting conversations he’s ever had. He suspects that it may also have something to do with his self-criticism. It is very likely to have something to do with the man’s striking eyes, gold in direct sunlight. 

 

He remembers the knowing look that Herbert gives him when he catches him staring.

 

He remembers the goddamned parasol.

 

He remembers the chaos of Charing Cross. Construction to commemorate the victory at Trafalgar is underway. Daniel is lingering by the National Gallery, watching the world unfold, when he looks up and sees Herbert. As it turns out, they have both been passing time before they were due to meet.

 

He remembers the infectiousness of Herbert’s excitement. He speaks of an expedition to Algeria, awaiting approval from the board. He speaks of the arcane, dismissive of complications, licences, and bureaucracy – and, “By God, Nelson will find his eye before any of that dross will stop us, won’t he just, Daniel?”

 

Daniel does not remember ever being so happy. To watch the enthusiasm of his mentor, an expert in a field he himself aspires to conquer – to be respected and brought in as though he were a fellow old boy – him! – is intoxicating. He admires the strength in Herbert’s shoulders, the erudition implicit in his bearing.

 

Hindsight tells him that Herbert’s escalating mockery of him was not unearned. In any case, he cannot blame him. If Daniel had a young, adoring thing, such as he had been, hanging onto his every word, he too may not have been able to restrain himself.

 

This expedition would bring glory tenfold, Her Majesty herself would make sure they would be amply rewarded for the furtherment of the Empire’s magnificence! Herbert’s voice escalates in zeal.

 

A bright man such as yourself could contribute to achieving this greatness, Herbert says.

 

You'll see, it'll all be approved and later, when we emerge successful, I will remember your early endorsement and support, Herbert says.

 

So what say you, will you join me in Algeria?

 

How can he refuse?

 

Hazel can wait. It’s all she can do, anyway.

 

This will make him extraordinary, he thinks. They will all revere him.

 

He remembers that thought as he moulds himself around this promise, as it forms into fixation.

  
He remembers that this thought is the first one to desert as he finds himself desperate, scrabbling in the darkness of the tomb like a rat, teeth chattering in the heat, begging to be let out as all pretence drains from him, the orb unfathomable and threatening as it lays aside, forgotten, together with the glory he was once promised.

 

Yet does the glory of life and death not now belong to him? 

 

 

*

 

 

They are surveying the dungeons before commencing work, when the offering presents itself.

 

Alexander does not remark upon the carrion mounted across the wheel. Daniel tries to read anything at all into his features. Even disapproval would be preferable to this.

 

Daniel chooses not to pursue it. If the Baron has noticed his appalling countenance – which he is sure to have done – he is saying nothing of it.

 

It is Alexander’s stillness, when taken in combination with all else that he is, that never fails to raise admiration in Daniel. The stillness of a hunter. He wishes that he, too, could appear as unmoved.

 

He does not think about what any of it means. What has transpired the previous night has transpired, and it is of no use to dwell further.

 

What does drive him curious is that he feels rather better today than he has in a long time.

 

Is it due to his work of the previous night?

 

Daniel hopes Alexander finds it satisfactory. He still hopes for any reaction at all as they return to the nave.

 

They go about the tasks of the day. Noon draws near. Daniel begins to lose hope that they will ever broach the subject, yet there it hangs. Like a corpse, he deadpans to himself.

 

They are distilling blood into vitae, Daniel keeping time and passing instruments to Alexander as required. The Baron is immersed.

 

It is this aspect of the work he enjoys most –

 

Rather, a mean voice whispers in the back of his head, it is the aspect he will admit to enjoying most, in the waking hours, the semi-lucid hours.

 

If torture – sacrifice – is an art, then this is science. Here, he knows where he stands. There is at least some clarity in this forced focus.

 

He doesn’t hold it for long. He cannot help himself from watching Alexander’s hands, faring as well in these delicate tasks as they do in violence. The Baron has a gift, he thinks, for manipulating his physical environment. He seems to, at all times, know what requires his attention.

 

The steam coming from the beaker changes colour, and he is quick to lower the heat.

 

His hands could be a musician’s, Daniel thinks, long and callused, used to both detail and force. His forearms, bare beneath rolled-up sleeves, are wiry, and not at all withered to age.

 

He is staring. He snaps his gaze to his own hands – strong and masculine, yet completely unremarkable.

 

Alexander removes the simmering solution from the fire, setting it aside. Daniel spins the gas valve shut. He breathes in the smell of sulphur, damp, and brine, and remembers the sunless sea of Mediterranean storms.

 

“I shall have the servants clear the wheel as we prepare,” Alexander says at last as he straightens his posture, rolling his sleeves back down. This comes apropos of nothing. Daniel is taken aback. The look on his face must be comically startled, because Alexander laughs in earnest.

 

“The wheel. Yes,” he manages.

 

The Baron must think him stupid.

 

“Don’t worry so, Daniel. Your nocturnal work was thorough,” Alexander lingers on the final word, and Daniel shudders. He likes the way he says his name.

 

“I apologise if it was presumptuous of me to proceed on my own. The machinations of the Shadow seem to remain unaffected, and I thought it was a good idea to make up for some lost time,” Daniel says, and cringes. He does not even convince himself. He settles for fussing with his sleeves.

 

Alexander fixes him with a look that makes him feel bare. It is indulgent, and perhaps knowing. Yet he sees no pity in it.

 

“Yes, a good idea indeed,” Alexander drawls. “And not a bad demonstration of the principles I explained, if I may add.”

 

Daniel waits to hear the rest he knows is coming. He does not know why he is holding his breath.

 

Alexander stands before him and places a hand on Daniel’s elbow in encouragement as he adds, “You could stand to heed the usefulness of the wheel’s function in regards to timing, however.”

 

Daniel nods, meeting the Baron’s eyes. He is nervous. He notes, not for the first time, that there is something about Alexander's patrician features that does not quite accord. He cannot explain it; perhaps it is the age they betray, combined with the energy of the man.

 

Daniel catches himself staring, again. The Baron's mouth quirks upward. His hand is still on his elbow. He is rather near, and Daniel can feel his heat. He realises that he is freezing.

 

“You will show me how to, in that case?” Daniel finds it in himself to ask. He steps away to fix the alignment of some papers on the workbench.

 

He hates himself.

 

“It would be my pleasure,” Alexander says. He may be smiling. “I will inform the servants.”

 

Daniel is alone once more as the Baron sweeps through the door.

 

He grips the edge of the table, knuckles white.

 

Daniel picks up a book near the stack of papers that has received his meticulous attention.

 

He hurls it across the room.

 

 

*

 

 

Daniel admits that he is looking forward to watching Alexander work the convict on the wheel. It is always a pleasure to watch a master. Alexander has a knack for elevating the grisly, the infernal and gruesome into high art. It is a process that Daniel finds extraordinary to behold in the beauty of its ugliness.

  
While the servants are preparing the wheel, they walk to the prison cells. Alexander tells him to choose a convict.

 

He knows it is a test of his judgment. 

 

Not that they have a lot of choice, Daniel thinks as he walks along the row of cells, looking in through the bars of each. They are running low, and they need to make the most of each one. He wonders again at what will happen when they run out of criminals. The thought disappears almost as soon as it is formed.

 

He walks towards a cell door near the end. This one might suit; fresh, in comparison. They hadn't worked on him as much as may merit the final destination of the wheel, but Daniel considers the scarcity issue once more.

 

Inside the cell sits a handsome young man. He looks strong, as though he is just reaching his peak years. Daniel wonders what foul act he has committed to land him here. The boy sits, quiet, and Daniel surmises that he is too tired to cry, yet unable to sleep.

 

“This one.”

 

Alexander nods and unlocks the cell. He does not question Daniel’s choice, and Daniel feels some satisfaction at this. The Baron hesitates before the door.

 

Daniel watches him reach into his pocket and procure a vial of familiar pink liquid.

 

“Isn’t it early in the proceedings for that?”

 

“Very good,” Alexander says with the ghost of a smile. “But no…. I thought you should give the dosing a try today. See how it works.”

 

“Thank you,” Daniel says as he takes it from the Baron, fingers lingering over his for a fraction of a moment beyond what is necessary.

 

They are warm, and Daniel is cold. He finds his mouth is rather too dry.

 

Alexander doesn’t miss a thing. “Besides, I may have my hands full later on.”

 

Daniel wishes he could vanish as the Baron finally opens the door, gesturing for him to go first. He can’t fight the stupid smile taking over his face as he does so. He absently pockets the Amnesia mixture.

 

Alexander turns his head to look back at the nave as Daniel walks through.

 

He stops stock still at the threshold, smile disappearing. Something is wrong.

 

Daniel’s eyes meet the prisoner’s at the exact moment that he realises what it is, but it is too late.

 

“Alexander, his hands are fre-”

 

The prisoner moves before he can even register. Loose manacles and chains fall from him as he plunges a shard, perhaps of broken piping, into Alexander’s shoulder.

 

Alexander snarls, caught off guard, and attempts to disarm the prisoner, grasping his shoulder with one hand.

 

Daniel is frozen in a moment of self-loathing. This is only happening because of him. If he only had more focus, he must not have tied him up correctly - He snaps into action, his movements automatic, with only one aim: do not let him escape.

 

He jumps at the prisoner’s back as Alexander continues struggling with him. The boy is taller than he is, so it is easy for Daniel to hold on as the prisoner thrashes. The prisoner stabs at him. He dodges the shard.

 

Daniel does the only thing his mind conjures to break this rapidly deteriorating stalemate.

 

He bites the boy’s neck. He draws blood.  The prisoner cries out, but he does not relent. A rank taste fills his mouth as he bites down further, cleaving flesh and sinew from bone.  The prisoner screams. His teeth ache.

 

Alexander lifts himself off the ground, and with his hurt arm grabs at the forgotten shard as the prisoner tries to throw Daniel. The prisoner succeeds, yet it comes with a sick ripping noise, and Daniel spits out gore as he regains his balance. In the split second it takes him to recover, the prisoner throws himself onto Daniel, just as Alexander brings down the shard. It misses, but catches along his knee, and the prisoner howls, squirming on top of Daniel. He is bleeding profusely from the neck, right onto his face. 

 

He squeezes his eyes shut against the blood, trying to use the brief distraction to push the boy off, blind. He fails - the boy grabs his hair as he attempts to get up. He smashes the back of Daniel’s head into the floor. Daniel gasps, his teeth and brain clattering in his skull. The boy is strong. He brings Daniel’s head down again, hand pushing over his face, over his mouth and nose.

 

He is drowning, drowning in blood, his and the boy's. Where is Alexander? Has he finally decided to let him die?

 

His answer comes with the sickening crunch of a crowbar cracking into ribs. The prisoner rolls off Daniel, moaning, and Alexander meets Daniel’s eyes, nodding. It is a question. Daniel rolls his eyes in response. Alexander throws him the shard, keeping the crowbar. Daniel catches and smiles. He can’t be sure of what is fuelling him past the pain.

 

They stalk towards the prisoner, weapons in hand. The prisoner manages to get up, still moaning, a feral animal. He sizes them up in turn.

 

The prisoner charges towards him. As Daniel stabs at his chest, Alexander lands a blow to his back. Their eyes meet over the prisoner’s shoulder.

 

The Baron looks alive.

 

Pushing Daniel away, the prisoner howls in rage, and manages to grab the crowbar. He tries to pull it away from Alexander.

 

Alexander uses the leverage, reaching with his other hand so he is holding both ends of the crowbar. He pulls the crowbar against the prisoner's neck until he goes white, his back flush against Alexander's body, gasping.

 

Daniel marvels at this show of strength. Alexander pulls tight as the prisoner begins to suffocate, thrashing for air.

 

Daniel is not sure whether they should still preserve him. Such a pity to waste.

 

“Daniel!”

 

The Baron’s voice spurs him into action. He does not know what to do, so he moves on instinct.  He drives the shard into the prisoner’s chest, again and again. He loses himself in a haze of anger and hate. All that exists is the shard disappearing into the body, and the Baron watching him. He doesn’t notice the body shuddering still, or Alexander calling his name. He is only brought back when the body falls away, thudding as it comes down dead weight beside them.

 

His breath and blood pound in his ears, and his lungs hurt. He is giddy. His head aches, and his vision blurs, distorts. Blood covers his face and coats the inside of his mouth.  He does not want to appear rude by spitting it out. He realises this is absurd. His head pulses, and he grinds his teeth at the sudden lack of motion, the spinning, the ringing. He pushes his palms into his eyes, and removes them bloodier. He looks up at Alexander.

 

The Baron’s shoulder appears to have stopped bleeding. Alexander leans against the wall, catching his breath. His clothes are a blood-splattered mess. He closes his eyes and winces, holding his hand to his shoulder.  

 

Daniel does not remember ever seeing him weary.

 

He bites at his tongue as his chest heaves at the smell.  He continues watching Alexander as his eyes sharpen through the pain. Their eyes meet.

 

Daniel feels his heartbeat in his throat. His lungs still work for air, and a peculiar nervousness settles in his stomach. His eyes dare not leave Alexander’s.

 

 

*

 

 

He is blood-drenched and buoyed by death. 

 

Daniel knows it is inevitable from the moment they reach his rooms.

 

He recognises it for what it is. 

 

It is more dangerous a portent than the Algerian expedition ever has been, when they dress each other's wounds. Alexander's bare shoulder.

 

Doom roars in his ear, louder than the Shadow, as Alexander cleans his gore-encrusted stubble with a cloth. His lips shine red with blood.

 

He closes his eyes, and Alexander's hesitation with the cloth gives the man away.

 

Daniel’s mouth finds his neck at the same time as Alexander’s hands close around his waist. 

 

He rasps at him to dare not be gentle, and Alexander's weight pushes him down into the bed.

 

He forgets everything else.

 

 

*

 

 

Alexander fucks the same way he does everything else, Daniel thinks. His forehead pushes into the headboard, his hands twisting into the sheets. This won't help with his injuries. That is fine with him.

 

Alexander thrusts into him with that single-minded intensity he shows his work. Those hands he so admires are everywhere at once, clawing at his flank, pushing between his shoulder blades, trapping him face down.

 

Daniel moans and turns his head, hair falling into his eyes. His knees ache, folded beneath him, but he welcomes the pain. He arches his back, smirking as he draws a growl from the other man.

 

Alexander leans forward to kiss upwards along his spine. Daniel chews his lip as he bites into his neck hard, his nails digging along the same path up his back, tracing his scars. Daniel grits his teeth and drives himself back hard to meet Alexander’s thrusts. His knees are screaming in protest.

 

Alexander’s hand tangles itself in the back of Daniel’s head, and pulls him up by the hair until he is on his knees. His face presses into his forearm, propped against the headboard. His other hand tries to find balance, desperate. He finds Alexander's hand. Their fingers interlace.

 

Daniel notices that he has lost his erection. He does not care as long as Alexander continues doing what he is doing. 

 

His mind drifts to the laudanum he will have afterwards. It will be especially pleasant following the physical exertion.

 

A slap on the rump interrupts his thoughts. The sting offends him in the split second before he decides he wants to feel it again, and again.

 

“Oh, Daniel,” Alexander purrs, and Daniel relishes it. “Am I… boring you?”

 

Daniel turns his head up and to the side to get the hair out of his eyes. He knows how he must look, and cannot but grin at the feeling of being admired. Alexander leans forward, running his hands over Daniel’s body, biting at his lips. It is not quite a kiss. 

 

Daniel is breathless, weightless. Air is forced from his mouth with every thrust, it is painful, and he loves it.

 

“No,” he manages, “But you can stop treating me like a woman and fuck me.”

  
  
Alexander crosses an arm over his chest, pulling him up until Daniel is seated on him. Daniel thinks he may hate him for the care he puts into it, in the way he gives him this without making him beg for it. The thought makes him hard again as he writhes on the man's lap.

 

Alexander’s breath is hot in his ear as Daniel tips his head back onto his shoulder. He spots the orb from the corner of his eye. He puts all his energy into meeting the thrusts, but once more, he cannot connect to himself. Alexander’s skilful hands on his cock find that they are fighting a losing battle.

 

“Is everything –”

 

“Yes, just – ”

 

Daniel brings himself down at a slight angle then, leaning forwards. He whimpers.

 

“Just carry on like this.”

 

Alexander obliges, and Daniel allows himself to close his eyes into the pleasure.

 

 

*

 

 

He is not sure where he is. A thick mist surrounds him, together with the smell of damp grass and pine. He wanders this desolate landscape, searching for any clue as to where he is, when he finds a worn footpath.

 

He follows it, not sure how he has arrived in such a place. He sees two men alight from a coach, their forms too far away to be anything but vague in the fog. He sees that one carries a sword. He feels ill, without knowing why. He wants to tell them to stop.

 

He sees what looks like a farmhouse appear from the mist, and the pit of dread in his stomach intensifies. He thinks he can hear children laughing. What can they be laughing at?

 

He tries to follow the men at a safe distance, for instinct tells him that it will not do to be seen nor heard.

 

He sees them enter one of the buildings. They are silent.

 

He notices a farm hand not too far from him, feeding a small calf, and the gentle image relaxes him.

 

Calm turns to horror as he hears the screams come. A woman, children. This isn’t right. Can he do something? Why isn’t he doing something?

 

What is there that he can do?

 

He stumbles back as the scene in front of him changes.

 

He does not get an opportunity to survey his surroundings – dark, musty, is he in the dungeons? – before a roar permeates his bones, ringing through his skull, and he falls onto his knees, covering his ears, trying to mitigate the noise, and it is so awful that he doesn’t fixate on the darkness –

 

He opens his eyes as the sound abates, and Alexander is near him, his back to him. He gets up and walks over to the other man, compelled, a moth to his flame.

 

“I do so hope that you realise, Daniel. I hope you will eventually come to understand that it is for the best.”

 

Daniel stops, unsure, hand reaching out even as he wants to draw back.

 

“I am beginning to wish you had not turned out to be… as you are. It is such a shame. I know you will soon see what is happening. I know you will hate me.”

 

The Baron is still facing away from him. This frustrates Daniel, that always it is he who needs an answer, that Alexander, always so open and honest with him, isn’t facing him, isn’t confronting him, and he places his hand on the Baron’s shoulder, trying to turn him, to at least look upon his face –

 

The Baron complies, and Daniel cries out, for there were supposed to be his eyes where mist hung suspended in the sockets, and there was a cruel maw, and - what? - what is he looking at? Is this countenance flayed or is this the skin? It is a terrible, avian, mockery of humanity, yet it seems to survey him with some measure of compassion.

 

The space where there used to be eyes glows amber. The jaws seem to form a macabre smile.

 

“I wonder. Will you forgive me?”

 

Daniel’s sight fades. He is suspended in time, and the fade is slow enough that the face of this terrible thing wearing Alexander’s clothes burns itself into his retinas. He wonders if the image will ever leave him. It is descent without a hope of reascent.

 

It remains, eyes burning into him, glowing like that cursed orb.

 

Then: darkness. So sensitive is he to it, that he is able to discern the particular flavours of his fear, of his father’s cupboard, the tomb in Algeria, trapped where he knows he will never be able to leave, no, this is how he will die, in the dark and unknown, as he has always feared, and he knows that this is what he deserves.

 

 

*

 

 

Daniel startles awake, his eyes wild, heart dropping through his stomach.

 

He supposes this is a pleasant awakening compared to others of late.

 

He is warm. He rolls over to see Alexander asleep beside him, nude. The recollection of the night before does not surprise him. Not as much as finding that the other man has stayed with him.

 

His head pounds and hammers at his brain, and he has to stifle a whine. Laudanum may help. He hasn't had any.

 

Daniel’s gaze lingers on the Baron’s naked form. He looks far stronger in his clothes; like this, he is wraithlike. He feels far stronger than he appears. 

 

He replays the feeling of hands on his body, manipulating his limbs. How had he known just how to touch him? He thinks on the feeling of being surrounded, penetrated – he shivers. He fails to force back an unbidden smile.

 

Daniel doubts he will ever accept his own proclivities, as such.  But he has come to terms with taking his pleasure, and with knowing his desires.

 

He hasn’t had his laudanum.

 

He reaches for the bedside table, and tries to be quiet as he rummages blind across its surface for the familiar shape of the vial. He is too lazy to lift his head. He notes with some gratitude that his lantern has been lit and left beside him.

 

Vial in hand, he stretches, catlike, and downs it in one, still lying down.

 

Better, though the pain remains.

 

The orb glints through its covering, both in comfort and threat.

 

He rolls to his side, turning his back to it, into what he hopes will be a dreamless sleep. Arms wrap around him as he drifts away.

 

 

*

 

 

He is running down a dark corridor. He doesn't know why. He only knows that it is imperative that he reaches his target. He cannot allow whatever it is he is chasing to escape, under any circumstances. This thought keeps him moving through the pain in his knees and chest, through his wild-animal heartbeat, his breath deserting his lungs, through the expanding darkness.

 

He reaches out to the orb in its pedestal, and isn't he chasing something? It throws out blue sparks to match the ones covering an adjacent entryway. He knows instinctively that touching them would hurt.

 

Even so, he places his hand on the orb. Instead of the expected pain, a roar rises, as though from within himself. Its increasing frequency, of late, does not stop him from startling.

 

He knows without turning what he will find behind him. Strings of ichor dripping off putrefaction, surrounding him in gentle pulsing. It is closing in, and it is right behind him. He whimpers.

 

He has the absurd notion of picking up the orb, and tossing it at this hideous manifestation. This notion seems to change the energy of the pulsating mass, from enraged to placid. Pleased, even.

 

Daniel, puzzled, takes his hand off the orb, and the Shadow seems to snap out of its daze, if such a thing is possible. Its roaring this time is louder than any sound Daniel has ever had the misfortune to hear.

 

He is back in the corridor, running, confused, where is he now? Has he not just been in front of the orb? Still, he continues, for he knows that his quest is critical, that it is all up to him now, and that again he would be putting Alexander in mortal danger if he did not reach her in time –

 

He is in Grosvenor Square again. Hazel is in his arms, her face dappled blue, eyes unseeing, her face turning purple – why? – his hands are around her neck in an awkward grip, squeezing, squeezing, this little bitch wouldn't bring about their downfall, no – thumbs on her eyes, so much like his own, heels of his hands pressing down on either side of her jaw, cracking, blood, blood on his hands, cracking, why does he not stop, what is he doing?

 

What has he done?

 

 

*

 

 

He cannot hear, he cannot see, he doesn’t know where his reality begins and ends.

 

He thrashes, until he is aware of hands grasping his shoulders. 

 

He returns. 

 

Alexander is holding him. He looks worried, hair matted with sleep.

 

Daniel is reminded of something he feels needs to be remembered. He cannot remember his dream, only blood, and roaring. He opens his mouth, searching for excuses.

 

“Sorry.”

 

He feels an utter fool.

 

“Hush, Daniel,” Alexander whispers, hands stroking his shoulders. Daniel is unused to such affection, though he thinks he could begin to find it comfortable.

 

“I woke you up. Since the Shadow – my dreams – I should’ve mentioned it, that’s all.”

 

Daniel knows he is rambling, eyes downcast. He blinks away tears, and hates himself. 

 

This is new. Never has he woken up with anyone, never has he cared. He dislikes this at the same time that he craves it.

 

He senses that this is dangerous. He senses that he will begin to expect too much.

 

Yet Alexander is looking at him in a way that hurts his heart, and he meets his eyes.

 

He decides to trust him with this.

 

Daniel exhales, and Alexander drops his hands to his side.

 

“What’s disturbed your sleep so?”

 

His eyes are drawn to Alexander's nudity, his prominent ribs. Daniel looks away, shaking his head.

 

“I – the blood wards, Alexander. I know not regarding my dreams, yet I feel the Shadow beckoning. I hear its cry – the wards are failing – I –”

 

Tears roll down his face. Alexander watches him. Listening.

 

“Its cry disarms me. The wards are failing. We do not have much time,” he gasps, a new fear tightening his chest, and he feels faint as he stamps down on this new feeling - hope. It grows false and bitter in his mouth.

 

He is shaking, he realises, and Alexander cradles his head to his chest. Daniel allows himself to be held, though it frightens him. The Baron’s hair obstructs his vision. He wants to feel safe where he is - he has no reason not to. Yet he does not.

 

Alexander tilts his chin up, smiling at him, and Daniel knows that at least he must try to find a way, though he is lost. He tries to find any direction at all in the man’s eyes.

 

His lips find Alexander’s. He parts his mouth to his tongue, as Alexander twines a hand in his hair and sighs into his mouth. He holds on.

 

This may be their first kiss. He feels ridiculous for noticing.

 

Alexander leans his forehead to Daniel’s.

 

His disgust with himself intensifies. This makes things worse. The way Alexander looks at him makes things worse.

 

For once, he looks old.

 

“How am I to be redeemed, Alexander?” Daniel says.

 

Alexander murmurs something into his hair, and Daniel cannot quite hear despite their proximity. He is not sure it is in English, or even in German, for that matter.

 

Daniel can’t seem to help himself.

 

“What shall become of all this? Would it be that I must directly confront the Shadow to preserve all that we have worked for – our… work – lives –”

 

Alexander leans away.

 

“I wish it could be different, Daniel.”

 

“What?”

 

“Pay me no mind.”

 

“I must face the Shadow?”

 

Alexander runs a hand through his hair again. Daniel shivers in pleasure as he rubs his scalp.

 

“Pay me no mind, Daniel.”

 

It strikes him. Earlier. He didn’t come. And Alexander is so warm now, his body bare before him–

 

Arousal hits him, hard. He is lightheaded as he leans in to taste Alexander’s neck, his hand travelling down the other man’s torso, closing around his girth, half-hard from sleep.

 

“I would face the shadow, Alexander,” he breathes into the man’s neck. The other man utters a guttural sound through grit teeth at Daniel’s touch. Daniel catches it with his lips. “I will do whatever it takes.”

 

“Perhaps this is my redemption,” he mutters, his grip firm. Alexander’s hand finds his cock. Daniel shifts, and Alexander’s touch is so good, and he sighs. “Perhaps you are my redemption. Saving our work, and saving you –"

 

Alexander silences him with another kiss, pushing him onto his back, free hand finding his. Daniel uses the momentum to roll them around again, so he is straddling the other man.

 

“So, Alexander,” he draws out the name, and he smirks at the Baron’s shudder as he wraps his hand around both their arousals, “I believe we were in the middle of something.”

 

Alexander looks up at him in adulation. Daniel’s stomach lurches with dread. He leans down to bite at the man’s unharmed shoulder, silencing his thoughts.

 

Then, Alexander sits up, flipping them back around, pinning him down by the arms.

 

Daniel's legs wrap around the other man's waist as they kiss, and the violence is welcome.

 

“You believe...” Alexander kisses his mouth, his neck. A hand back on his cock. "You believe we were in the middle of something?"

 

Alexander's mouth travels down his neck, down his chest. His hand follows. He pauses to watch Daniel fight back a moan, before he tastes the head of his cock.

 

Daniel can't breathe. He watches as Alexander moves a hand over his erection, and meets his eyes as he sucks at his tip.

 

It is Alexander’s turn to smirk.

 

"Then maybe I shall have to remind you."

 

Daniel gasps as Alexander devours him.

 

He succumbs to hope.

 

 

*

 

 

They rise to work early.

 

Daniel feels industrious as they descend to the lower levels. Though he has slept little, his senses are centred for once. Things fit together.

 

They will appease the Shadow for another day. They will buy more time.

 

Time for what? Daniel tries not to think, tries not to let anything spoil his mood. Will it have to continue forever? Will they have to kill every day, every soul on the planet until he concedes to the inevitable?

 

He pushes these thoughts away. It will be fine. He has Alexander beside him. They are clearing the world of the criminal scourge.

 

“We must greatly increase our output today. I’m afraid we can tarry no longer in extending their suffering,” Alexander says as they advance into the prison halls.

 

“But we don’t have that many left, do we?” Daniel asks as he quickens his pace to match the Baron's.

 

“Worry not, Daniel,” Alexander turns to him with a grim smile. “My men have made sure to transfer a couple of new ones into our care.”

 

Daniel stumbles on the thought of, how many more could there possibly be, dismisses it. These are strange lands, after all.

 

“And I suppose the Amnesia mixture will do the rest,” he mutters as they continue down the corridor.

 

“Good, you are beginning to understand.”

 

“You really thought of everything,” Daniel says, and then hesitates.

 

Alexander stops in front of him. Daniel can tell that he is growing impatient.

 

“What is it now?”

 

He looks down at his hands, unsure of how to proceed.

 

“They are bad people, Alexander? Even… even the women?”

 

“Again. Do you not trust me?”

 

Daniel meets his eyes. He nods.

 

“No Daniel, I wish to hear it.”

 

“Yes, Alexander, I trust you,” he admits.

 

“Good. Then let it be the last I hear of this,” Alexander says, turning to continue down the corridor. Daniel follows.

 

They reach the prison. Daniel is not sure why his compunctions linger. He is being silly. It may be the case that he is going against everything he has known. Yet Alexander has his trust, if not his abject gratitude.

 

A part of him realises that these little scruples of his have long become outdated. They have died, in fact - perhaps on that night working the prisoner on the wheel, perhaps before. He has no right to assume a moral position over Alexander, in any case.

 

These criminals. They are the personification of the stench that invades his senses down here. Indeed he will be rewarded for ridding the world of them, he thinks.

 

And yet.

 

He can feel the Shadow draw ever nearer, and the fear will paralyse him if he stops to dwell on it.

 

Besides, Alexander has not once been wrong.

 

 

*

 

 

He remembers a day in the dungeons. 

 

He remembers the sight of that painted man on the stone slab, as Alexander sharpens a dagger.

 

This is his sacrifice.

 

This is his kill.

 

Alexander gives him the dagger reverently. It seems ceremonial, its appearance uncommon.  His voice is almost tender as he tells Daniel what he must do.

 

Daniel's grip on the dagger is unsure at first. It will soon become familiar and skilled.

 

The first plunge of his dagger into the bound body is a revelation. It is pure physical sensation.

 

Paint the man, the Baron said. Is he not painting?

 

Cut the flesh.

 

He remembers hoping that there is some finesse to his actions.

 

Alexander stands back, across the slab from Daniel, and watches. Daniel can feel his eyes on him, working over him, assessing him as he cuts the lines, cuts the lines over and over, and he is doing so well, is he not?

 

He loses himself to the moment.

 

It is good to be holding the knife. This is allowed. It is sacrifice. This is a murderer, after all.

 

Alexander calls to him, but he will not stop.

 

“Alexander, you must let me be. I have to concentrate.”

 

His tone is insolent. He does not care. Alexander gives him a genuine smile then.

 

“Without a doubt,” Alexander says, stepping to Daniel’s side. “I think some direction would save us some time? If I may?”

 

The criminal on the slab still lives. His attempts to thrash about are failing. The sight brings Daniel back.

 

Daniel stares down at him, horrified. How can he lose himself so easily? Is his threshold to violence so low? Does he need so little excuse? The dagger slips out of his hand, clattering to the floor. His eyes unfocus.

 

He has since lost the majority of these childish compunctions.

 

Alexander picks up the dagger, and places it back in Daniel’s hand.

 

“You are doing so well, Daniel.” There is mercy in his voice. His kindness shatters Daniel’s heart. “But now you must continue. Come, I will assist.”

 

What Daniel remembers most is Alexander’s eyes. They are so much like those of a Tuareg exile he came to know in the desert. He remembers wind-weathered, indigo-stained skin against his own.

 

The room is silent save for the prisoner’s muffled cries and Daniel’s rasping breath. Alexander’s left hand closes above his right over the dagger.

 

They continue together.

 

 

*

 

 

Screams of pain, when heard often enough, seem to blend together into a symphony. A clear melody forms, with a rhythm. Staccato breath, legato howls, rest, whimpers and the crescendo of yet more screams.

 

Daniel follows the beat, as they lead wretched convicts to their ultimate contribution to humanity: giving life to save life. This is their destiny.

 

He is doing them a favour. He thinks this as he leads an initial session on one of them. They will drain her the following day. He thinks this as he paints shallow lines on the woman’s back under Alexander’s scrutiny.

 

He is giving them their crown of thorns, and they should be glad. He thinks this as he shoves the Amnesia down one’s throat, as he chokes and struggles in defiance.

 

He is their redemption, and Alexander is his, and he loses all track of time as they go through several more. They save the final, more severe and tiring sessions for the afternoons.

 

Paint the man. Cut the lines.

 

Blood. Only blood can quench its thirst.

 

Alexander is an angel for doing all this for him.

 

He does not register anything as they return to distil the blood. He is blank, as they descend once more. Nothing seems sharp in his vision, though he is clear that he will be triumphant. He feels as though he has been holding his breath until they are once more before the wheel.

 

Daniel admires it, admires Alexander as he ties a criminal to the circumference. He is instructing him, but Daniel has used this before and has no patience for academic matters. He pushes in front of Alexander, a faint buzzing in his head and blood pounding in his ears as he begins to turn the wheel, the beast’s head rushing towards the floor –

 

“Patience!” Alexander snaps, stopping him and the wheel both with a hand on his. “Think! Do you wish to crush his skull?”

 

Daniel is blank.

 

Alexander looks at the convict, who cowers in the skilful strappado that ties him to the spokes. Daniel tastes his fear like he can taste blood.

 

“Daniel. I am going to give you precisely one minute to focus.”

 

Daniel scowls. On the other hand, he finds that he likes the authoritative tone in the other man’s voice very much indeed. He moves towards Alexander, hands shaking as he reaches for him.

 

Alexander moves away.

 

“For heaven’s sake,” Alexander hisses, and pulls a vial of laudanum from his pocket, shoving it at Daniel.

 

Daniel feels a wave of affection for the Baron, and takes it. It is barely settled in his hand before he drinks it all.

 

His clarity returns.

 

He knows now that it is never pity in the Baron’s eyes as he hands the vial back. He nods.

 

“Thank you. Now, shall we?”

 

Daniel steps back a respectful distance and watches the master at work, teasing at pain, flaying, crushing.

 

He can't help but think of those hands moving over him, over his cock, Alexander’s mouth on him. 

 

He still feels him in the soreness between his legs. As he watches a man’s arm be flayed open from the fingers up, he can't help but think of Alexander playing with his foreskin, swallowing his shaft. Despite himself, he is aroused.

 

“What would you do now, then?” Alexander steps back as the man’s skin flaps loose against the wheel, muscle and sinew bare. 

 

Daniel is struck that this is all that is man. All the miracles of human knowledge, science, art, music - all subject to the limitations of the body. All they are is a hopeless mind, enclosed within a soft sack of flesh.

 

Alexander must see the reverence in his eyes.

 

“Daniel. I asked you a question.”

 

“Yes,” Daniel attempts to muster himself, eyes darting around the wheel, the prisoner, the sagging, flayed skin. He moves to stand by Alexander, examining the situation. He doesn’t think of Alexander bending him over the wheel, biting his neck, pushing his trousers down.

 

“I would irritate the exposed flesh. Mildly,” he decides, “But just mildly enough that it would cause pain, without further injury. I would do it gently. That would intensify what will come next.”

 

“Good, good,” Alexander croons, brushing Daniel’s hair out of his face. “What then?”

 

Or rather, Alexander shoving him down, forcing him to his knees.

 

“I would – I would leave him there. Give him some Amnesia. Collect and store the vitae we have already drawn. Perhaps begin on another one in the meantime.  Return and tie him across the spokes, and finish the job. I wouldn’t leave him overnight, as infection and blood loss will take him before sundown. If not faster.”

 

He is aware that Alexander is watching him with a wariness he cannot quite understand. It does not occur to him to find this strange. Rather it flatters him, exhilarates him. He feels respected.

 

He wants to cry from relief. 

 

“Well done, Daniel. Very well done.” He speaks absently, as though lost in thought. “Shall we then continue in the vein you propose?”

 

Daniel nods. Alexander moves forward.

 

“Wait. Alexander. Let me.”

 

He basks in Alexander’s attention as he proceeds to conduct the prisoner’s pain.

 

 

*

 

 

They continue according to plan.

 

They work on two criminals - including the one still breaking on the wheel. They decide that he has served his purpose.

 

Daniel analyses the Baron's movements. He had not drawn it out enough, the other night. He knows that impulsivity is his weakness, and the old self-loathing sears.  Their lives lie on his self-control. 

 

Alexander pulls the hammer out of the prisoner's chest for the last time. It makes a wet noise. He exhales, drops the hammer, and turns to Daniel. An odd relief shows through his countenance.

 

“Shall we call it a day, then?”

 

“Do you think the Shadow is appeased for now?” Daniel looks between the Baron and the broken thing on the wheel. It cannot whimper any more. 

 

“You tell me.”

 

“It is ever-present with me. I told you,” Daniel moves to the drain, opening it. “Do we collect this now or let more accumulate?”

 

Alexander is putting tools away on the other side of the room. “Let more come, this one has more to yield yet.” He wipes his bloodied hands on a cloth, slow, contemplative. “I, for one, think it is time for food, drink, and warmth.”

 

His voice curls over the words in a way that makes Daniel shiver.

 

It is only after supper that Daniel heeds his own exhaustion. They are in his rooms, by the fire, but he dares not relax, even as he sinks into his armchair. Not when the Shadow stands at the periphery of his consciousness, waiting for his next move. Not while the orb sits there, an answer to an unknown question.

 

“How long can this continue, do you think?” Daniel asks. 

 

“For as long as it has to,” the Baron replies. He is staring at the fire, unfocused, yet wide awake. 

 

“But there are only so many –”

 

“Daniel, please. Trust me. A way out will come.”

 

Daniel bares his teeth. Something within him twists.  “You cannot simply continue to keep me in the dark like this as death comes so near to us both!” 

 

Alexander gives him a sharp look. “Stop shouting, now.”

 

“I simply cannot see,” Daniel starts, softer this time, “How there could possibly be any way out. And if I… if we...”

 

Daniel does not know what to say.

 

Alexander’s features are inscrutable in the light of the fire. 

 

He jerks to his feet and moves to procure a decanter and two glasses from a sideboard.

 

Then, Alexander is standing before him, presenting the bottle to his line of sight. It glistens dark brown, though it is not as dark as laudanum. It appears to be some kind of whisky. Satisfied that Daniel has seen it, he pulls an end table to the space between them with his foot. Setting the two glasses down, he begins to pour a generous draught for each. He gives one to Daniel, who is surveying him in puzzlement, and sits back down with his own glass.

 

The potency of the liquid is such that he does not have to lower his head far at all to catch its scent. Mead…?

 

He looks up at Alexander again. He has undone his cravat, to Daniel's surprise. It hangs about his shoulders. He is sitting back with his legs crossed, face turned up to the heavens with his eyes closed. Daniel notices that he has drained his glass.

 

Alexander stirs under Daniel’s scrutiny. He comes back to life. He sets his glass down on the table and pours out some more.

 

Just as Daniel begins to think Alexander has finally gone mad, he speaks.

 

“Bärenfang.”

 

“I – I beg your pardon?”

 

“Bärenfang,” Alexander repeats, and Daniel frowns. “I apologise for my manners. It is indeed more of a sipping drink.”

 

“’Bear trap?’”

 

“Made locally.” Alexander stares at his glass with intent. “Fermented from potatoes and flavoured with honey. A specialty of the region. Bitter. This particular bottle,” he indicates as he takes a sip, “gifted to me by the royal distillery in Königsberg a long time ago. I do hope you like it.”

 

The mere act of smelling it strips his throat raw. Yet, he does not want to be rude. Alexander raises his glass. He lifts his in return, not taking his eyes off the liquid, before taking a sip. He winces as he swallows, though he supposes it is not unpleasant. 

 

He notices that Alexander downs his once more, and pours another. He is not sure whether this should concern him, but the Baron appears to steady his pace on the third. 

 

Daniel supposes he is neither in a position to blame, nor to judge.

 

They sit there for a good while, Daniel still sipping at his first glass. He lets his mind drift. The Baron pours himself another. Daniel tries not to start counting them.

 

He starts as he catches Alexander staring at him with amusement.

 

“Uh – yes?”

 

Alexander chuckles, and Daniel shudders at the richness of the sound. 

 

Not for the first time, he wonders about Alexander’s life before all this. He wonders about his position in the royal court, about his language. Had he been happy once? Did he ever have anybody with which to pass his days, be it a confidante, a spouse - a lover?

 

To his horror, an odd ire rises within him at the thought of the latter.

 

“There is a superstition around these parts,” Alexander says, eyes shining with mirth.  Daniel suspects he might be drunk. “That one who does not make eye contact with whomever toasts him is cursed to seven years of subpar lovemaking.”

 

Daniel stares at the paltry remains of his drink. He finishes his glass, sets it aside. He much prefers laudanum. He meets Alexander’s eyes, raising an eyebrow. Yes, he thinks. The man is drunk. And he, Daniel, is merry. God help them both.

 

“I suppose, then,” he begins, and there is no good reason he should be slurring, not with the amount of laudanum he is accustomed to. Although, this is much stronger. “That while some things are written into our fate, others are under our direct control.” He spreads his legs in an obscene gesture that would scandalise the Daniel of no more than a week ago. 

 

"Besides, I'm already cursed," he adds, eyes wide in feigned innocence, coy as he moves to undo his own cravat. “Wouldn’t you say... Baron?”

 

Alexander is kneeling in front of him before he can take his next breath, and when he does his mouth is on his own, hungry, hand cradling the back of his head as he pulls him down.

 

“Damn you, Daniel.”

 

Daniel wraps his legs around the other man, pulling him closer, hands winding in his hair.

 

They are both aggravating each other's injuries. He discerns that both of them cannot care less.

 

Alexander is feral against him, grinding, biting, breathless. Daniel is now certain that he is drunk.

 

“Damn you.”

 

Alexander pulls back, as sudden as has been his approach, and stands. This alarms Daniel.

 

“We could, yes - with enough vitae, it is entirely possible you could - maybe if. We would have enough by - no,” Alexander mumbles, eyes scanning over him, appearing a madman as he begins to pace. Daniel strains to hear, his chest tight. "Say that it works, would it – would you - no. Fuck!" he exclaims, and Daniel jumps. "No. I don't know. I don't know. No. Should I even - ?"

 

“Yes, but for now would you? Do you want - come - shall we?” Daniel rambles, reaching out. Nothing connects.

 

“Of course, of course,” Alexander snaps. He starts towards him, stumbles. A look of intense concentration crosses his face. Something about this difference from his usual demeanour goes beyond frightening Daniel. Instead, it makes him laugh, and he cannot stop. Alexander glares at him.

 

“What? What is so damned funny?” Alexander frowns, but he is laughing as he lifts Daniel in his arms, which alarms Daniel further. He does not have any particular wish for his face to make intimate acquaintance with the floor. Not with his head hurting so, as it is.

 

Alexander gets them as far as the bed before he stumbles again, but it cushions their fall.

 

“Daniel,” he draws out the name as he divests Daniel of his clothes, as Daniel fumbles with his. “Daniel.”

 

Daniel begins to lose his patience as fastenings fail to open beneath his clumsy fingers. Meanwhile the inebriated Alexander has got him almost naked. “Yes, how about you remove all this and –”

 

But Alexander just buries his head in Daniel’s neck beneath him. Daniel sighs as he runs his fingers through the man’s hair.

 

“Daniel, my darling. You are my ruin.”

 

Daniel attempts to subordinate his amusement at the situation to his arousal. He is present enough to realise that they are in trouble if he is the more lucid one.

 

He may know how to fix this. He extricates himself from a protesting Alexander, and crosses the room. He avoids looking at the orb. He digs through his fast-diminishing supply of laudanum - it is low enough to worry. That can come later - now, he's going to need some fortification. Alexander’s behaviour will frighten him beyond terror if he stops to think about it. So he does not.

 

“I will partake as well,” comes Alexander’s lilting voice from the bed. It is all Daniel can do to not roll his eyes.

 

“Stay fast, you have sufficiently… partook,” Daniel replies as he comes back with a vial, only to have it snatched from him. He is being ignored. “Alexander. Really now.”

 

Alexander has at least managed to unfasten his clothing. Daniel’s eyes move over the exposed parts of his body, at his hardening cock.

 

Alexander sits up, examining the laudanum with a sick, divorced look. “Curious,” he whispers, “So very curious, how such a thing as this can hold you so in thrall.”

 

Daniel tires of this. Without warning, he straddles him so they are nose to nose.

 

“Alexander. Give it back.”

 

“Or what, precisely?”

 

Daniel hates the smug look he is given as the laudanum is held out of his reach.

 

“Or – or what indeed?” Daniel smirks as he grinds against the other man, drawing a hiss.

 

Leaving the vial, Alexander’s hands creep up Daniel’s back. Daniel arches into the touch, pushing his hips forward, pressing their arousals together. 

 

Daniel moves so his lips are hovering over Alexander’s, only to pull away when he tries to come in for a kiss.

 

“I think I'll drink now, thank you.”

 

He wants to laugh at Alexander’s frustration, as he stops his grinding to reach for the laudanum. He retrieves it and gets back into position as he un-stoppers the vial, allowing the cork to roll away.

 

Alexander thrusts upwards and Daniel gasps, almost dropping the vial. He rights himself, gripping Alexander’s hips with his knees, stilling him. He gives him a glare that softens as he raises his vial to eye level. He makes deliberate eye contact as he toasts.

 

“Cheers, and zum Wohl!”

 

He drinks over half. Shifting down Alexander’s body as he hands him the vial, he takes his cock into his mouth.

 

He looks up at him through his eyelashes, enjoying his look of surprise.

 

Daniel detaches his mouth with an obscene popping sound.

 

“Well, you wanted to drink,” Daniel says, and he is feverish as he continues his attentions with a steady hand. “So drink.”

 

Alexander obliges and Daniel returns his mouth to where he knows it is most useful for the time being.

 

It is not long before he finds himself pulled up by a gasping Alexander. His eyes are dark, darker than usual from arousal, in the intoxicated half-light. The colour of laudanum. Alexander’s eyes are haunted. Hunted. 

 

Daniel almost pities him, before he realises it's only guilt. Corrosive.

 

Alexander reaches a hand to his face.

 

“Daniel,” he says, and kisses him. Daniel tastes the bitter of opiates. Alexander runs his fingers over his cheekbones, his jaw, his neck, as though blind. The motion reminds Daniel of his cravings, when they feel like rats gnawing through his skull.

 

Daniel pushes the other man forward until he is lying down. He relishes the warmth, the hard edges, the stubble beneath his lips. There is something of the ritual about it, he thinks, as his hands move down Alexander's body. This consecrates them both. He moves.

 

Daniel holds the other man down as he ruts against him, and it is without grace. He pushes his hand to Alexander’s panting mouth, growling at him to lick, and he does. He moves his hand down sweat-slicked skin to grasp at them both, the friction there. 

 

He continues as the world spins around him, disoriented, dizzy. He stares down at Alexander beneath him, grinding back against him, belonging to him. This is power freely given, and he takes it.  Daniel can feel Alexander's breath quickening in his chest, pressed against his own. He sees his eyes screw shut and feels hands fist at his back.

 

He lets out a breath he hasn't realised he's been holding to kiss his way up Alexander’s neck, across his cheek. 

 

He can feel the other man begin to fall apart.

 

“Look at me,” he breathes. Alexander’s eyes are unfathomable. Daniel leans down to swallow his growls as he comes. Daniel follows, breath rattling, hands caressing his face.

 

He drops onto Alexander, nuzzling his collarbone, indifferent to the mess between them.

 

He lets himself fall asleep to Alexander's heartbeat.

 

He doesn’t dream.

 

 

*

 

 

A stolen moment.

 

He doesn’t think he has ever seen Alexander looking pitiful. The Baron picks up the forgotten laudanum vial from the bed near where they slept. He puts it back down with contempt.

 

“I should be impressed that you can bear to drink that to such an extent.”

 

He is still frightened by the events of the previous night. Yet, he has witnessed and possessed Alexander’s vulnerability. He doesn't need to know the wherefores. Alexander's clothes are dishevelled, hanging by their fastenings. His brow bears the morning-after frown. Daniel smiles. He is the cause, and he is moved to pride.

 

His curse, and Alexander's fate, tied into his own.

 

This is his now - the ability to break somebody from the inside.

 

He leans over Alexander to inspect the same vial. Empty to the last drop.

 

“'That'? I would think it was more your ‘bear trap’–”

 

A stolen kiss.

 

He is not sure how he has become so comfortable with this affection in such a short time frame. He is not sure Alexander knows, either.

 

“Why don’t you get dressed and leave an old man in peace.”

 

Daniel bites back a laugh. There is something of vertigo about it.

 

“We’re in my rooms.”

 

“I’ll just fester here then.”

 

Daniel gets up.

 

“Look at you, making as though you are as old as this castle,” Daniel says, gathering his clothes off the floor. “Though I do suppose parts are falling apart.”

 

“I’m sure you mentioned no such thing last night,” Alexander smirks.

 

“Although, we really need to get round to adding those supports,” Daniel says, flushing as he pulls on yesterday’s shirt. “Show me those plans again, in the study. I’ve been told I’m decent at such things.”

 

“It doesn’t really matter anymore. Not now that we are almost finished,” Alexander sits up, wincing at his clothes, which are soiled with come and laudanum. He peels off his waistcoat and shirt, and casts them aside in disgust. “And who told you that? Will I be fighting any duels?”

 

Daniel doesn't even try to deny that he is flattered. "I mean, it's a pity. This castle is so - the place does have a timeless feel about it. As though nothing has changed for centuries,” he babbles, “and like it'll stay that way.”

 

He trails off, embarrassed with himself, electing to focus on getting dressed. Alexander watches him with a melancholy Daniel cannot attribute to the aftereffects of intoxication. 

 

“Yes, they tended to build them to last,” Alexander deadpans.

 

Daniel casts about for anything. “You mentioned – we are almost finished?”

 

“Indeed,” Alexander says, distant. “In fact, by this time tomorrow we could do it, perhaps. We just need a little more. And we can banish the Shadow forever with the full power of the orb.”

 

Daniel goes to sit at Alexander’s side. “But I think we’re out of prisoners.”

 

Alexander’s hand finds his own.  “We have two that are close to death.”

 

Daniel’s gaze turns downwards. "But we're this close, and the Shadow…"

 

Alexander's hand is on his chin, tilting Daniel’s face to look up at him. "I feel it too. Its presence is imminent." 

 

Daniel blinks. His eyes are wet. He makes a decision. "We can't give up now. Could there be another… Can there be more…"

 

The Baron leans in and kisses him. "You have been so brave."

 

He turns away, grinding his teeth. "It cannot simply end here. I refuse to - not after all this, and everything - Alexander?"

 

"Yes?"

 

There's a hand still at his neck. He cannot meet the other man's eyes.

 

"I am afraid."

 

"I know."

 

"Is there..." Daniel swallows. "Could there be - of course it would have to be discreet - perhaps, a sacrifice?”

 

In the silence, he leans into Alexander's touch. He feels caresses against his cheek, his closed eyes. He leans back into Alexander's arms. He supposes it is an embrace.

 

"When I was much younger," Alexander whispers into his ear. "This area was completely devastated by Napoleon’s armies. I saw ordinary peasants push through extraordinary circumstances for their own survival. We had famine, plague, and war all the while-"

 

"And perhaps the fourth horseman, as well?" Daniel quirks an eyebrow, twisting around to look at him at last.

 

"Hush. I am saying that there is never any shame in resilience. It is quite extraordinary what we are prepared to do for those we love."

 

"Alexander," Daniel says, still. He dares not move. "You have helped me thus far. I cannot but -"

 

He kisses him again, feather-light. “Just be quiet.”

 

Daniel complies, mind racing, and settles into his chest.

 

By the time Alexander speaks again, Daniel's heart has slowed. His eyelids are heavy. Alexander is warm, and Daniel wants to stay where he is forever, against his skin.

 

"Not a long way off from Altstadt, yet just remote enough, is a dairy farm where a small family live, the Zimmermans. They do not have too many links to the outside world..."

 

He continues. It is a good plan.

 

Daniel shudders, the cold rising once again.

 

He stands by what he has told Alexander.

 

He will do whatever it takes.

 

 

*

 

 

Morning is about to break as he barrels into his rooms. His hands are dirty with her blood. Daniel’s throat burns as wails continue to rise from him. They are beyond his control. 

 

He needs to wash. He needs to wash, then immediately find Alexander. Alexander would tell him what to do. He would tell him that it was necessary, and that things are as before, and Daniel would believe him. 

 

He stumbles into the washbasin, and frantically scrubs, trying not to think about it. The only thing he did wrong was to waste precious resources, he thinks. Alexander won’t hold it against him.

 

He turns to look for a cloth, not wanting to get his clothes any dirtier. He is astounded that such a thing can cross his mind at this moment. Instead he catches sight of Alexander, standing still at the threshold, and his mind empties. He tries to say something, but all he can utter is a pathetic sob.

 

To his credit, Alexander appears calm, though his eyes seem to betray something. Daniel can only imagine what. He doesn’t care as long as it is not disappointment, and Daniel lurches towards him. He wants to touch him, but does not want to stain his clothes with blood.

 

“I – that – the prisoner – it –”

 

“Enough,” Alexander whispers into Daniel’s increasing panic. “Shall we get you cleaned up?”

 

Daniel is shaking too much to be of any use, and the dim candlelight does not help matters. Alexander takes it into his stride. He is gentle as he scrubs at Daniel’s hands, at his tender knuckles. He changes him into a nightshirt.

 

Alexander settles him into bed, lighting a few more candles. He sits by him, pushing his hair out of his face. Daniel’s eyes sting at this kindness, undeserved.

 

When Daniel feels as though he can complete a sentence, he dares to ask.

 

“Don’t you want to know what’s happened?”

 

Alexander pauses. Some curious expression flashes across his face. “As a matter of fact, I believe that I do not.”

 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Daniel can feel his pulse quickening.

 

“Just as I said,” Alexander says, and his look is direct.

 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Daniel cries, and he is weeping again.

 

The rage comes unbidden, bitter and overwhelming. How can he stand there on his high ground and tell him – he shakes his head. Worthless. He, Daniel: worthless. If only he had stayed in London to die.

  
Alexander sighs, and leans forward to stroke Daniel’s hair. Despite himself, Daniel leans into the touch, resting his forehead against Alexander’s. He hates the stranger he has become to himself.

 

He wonders, not for the first time, about the men they have dosed with Amnesia. Did they remember enough to hate anything? He berates himself for thinking pointless thoughts. They are all dead.

 

Alexander’s hand is on his side now, calming him until he stops shaking once more. The constant rhythm lulls him into a haze of warmth, into which he can almost relax. 

 

“I killed the Zimmerman girl,” he whispers into Alexander’s mouth. “I killed her with my bare hands.”

 

Alexander goes still. Daniel can’t feel his breath mingling with his own. He shuts his eyes, mirroring the other man.

 

“Cracked her little skull right open.”

 

Alexander’s hand tangles in his hair, until it hurts. Daniel welcomes it.

 

“She was going to escape. The details don’t really matter. She was going to tell, about – everything. It doesn’t matter.”

 

Alexander opens his eyes. “I will stay with you tonight,” he says, through grit teeth.

 

They settle into bed, as the candlelight dims. Alexander is wrapped around him, and he twists until they’re lying face to face. Alexander looks on, past him, through him. He cannot parse his expression.

 

“I… Is it ready? Can we use the orb now?" He tries not to turn to look at it, fearing it might do something if he does. "With this… was this the final bit of vitae we needed?”

 

“Yes. It was. Yes, we will.”

 

“Oh good,” Daniel says, managing to smile. “We did it.”

 

Alexander kisses him then, hand cupping his face.

 

He kisses back.

 

He falls asleep, watched by sad eyes, long fingers in his hair.

 

 

*

 

 

When Daniel wakes, he is alone. And he remembers.

 

His breath comes in gasps, chest heaving, and he might retch again, but he has already exhausted the purpose the night before. He tries his utmost at calm, shutting his eyes. He only sees the child’s broken skull. 

 

The bed is cold. He needs Alexander.

 

It wasn’t Hazel, he thinks, even as he dry retches. The girl was a genuine threat.

 

He tries to convince himself that this will all be over soon. The final ritual will be soon. He tries to think of what he might do with his freedom. He even contemplates what role Alexander may have within this freedom.

 

The thought makes him laugh out loud. He fears he may be somewhat hysterical. He walks over to the washbasin, opening his gaze to the looking glass.

 

And freezes at what the reflection reveals.

 

The covered orb is absent from his desk.

 

His stomach drops through the floor.

 

He imagines that he must be external to his body. He watches his hand move to open cupboards, drawers, chests - calm, automatic. It shuts them again. The orb can't have fallen behind any furniture. He moves. He sees his arms, pale, shifting sheets and clothes, checking.

 

The orb is missing.

 

Everything connects.

 

He is short of breath.

 

He leaves his rooms. In a haze, he wanders. The study, the halls, the archives, the master suite. He can taste his heart pounding in his throat.

 

He needs Alexander not to be missing.

 

His fists clench. Blood trickles from between white knuckles.  He needs him here. He needs –

 

Alexander is nowhere to be found. 

 

He starts running.

 

He runs through the castle, vision blurred, hearing nothing over his heaving breath. He is not sure where he is going until he arrives, feeling as though his lungs will collapse.

 

The lift to the lower levels has been disabled. 

 

There is only one place Alexander can be.

 

In that moment, he realises what an idiot he has been, and what an idiot he has always been.

 

He feels as though he has swallowed ice. Something grips his insides, his neck, twists with the intent to implode him. He thinks he might faint, that he might sink, or rather that he has already sunk.

 

He drops to the floor and tries to control his breathing. 

 

He will die like this, alone. Consumed.

 

He is drowning and burning.

 

There he lies, staring at the high ceiling, without focus. Out of the corner of his eye, lion statues. Lions and eagles. All will crumble, along with this thrice-damned decrepit castle, along with him. He has never been anything but prey. He doesn't want to breathe. He wants the Shadow to appear, to destroy him, to absorb him into darkness forever.

 

When he rises, he does not know how much time has passed. He goes back to his rooms. He does not know why. He tries to collect himself, in vain. He is tired.

 

He goes through his diary, trying to find any clue, any observation he might have had. Any explanation – but of course, by habit, he had been far too careful in what he chose to divulge to paper. 

 

He has either omitted or ignored the details that mattered. How could he not see? What has he missed? He thinks of Alexander's smile, and his silences, and his touch, and his lies.

 

He thinks of how the nightmares had stopped at last.

 

His anger seizes him anew and he rips out pages one by one, howling, though his throat is already raw. He stands, kicking aside a pile of clothes. Something falls clattering to the floor from the pocket of a waistcoat.

 

He sees his reflection, eyes red, face wet, sheet-white, unshaven, unkempt. Pathetic.

 

He smashes the looking glass and upends the washbasin. He wishes for death as he destroys what he can, and his hands are bleeding, his arms are bleeding with broken glass, and it hurts. He wishes he had never existed. He wants to die. He’s too tired to bleed.

 

He has been made into a fool. He wants to die, then remembers he might have died an innocent.

 

No innocent blood would have been spilled, but for Alexander’s orders, and his entanglement. A fresh wave of anger burns through him. How dare he.

 

His eyes catch on the vial of rose-coloured liquid that rolled out of his waistcoat.

 

He would have been innocent.

 

If not for Alexander.

 

It hurts.

 

He wants oblivion.

 

But wasn’t that what Alexander had offered from the start? Those eyes, his voice, whispering promises. Whispering answers to questions he’s spent his entire life asking, with no one to listen. A certain peace.

 

False.

 

He cannot even scream anymore.

 

He knows now what he must do.

 

He picks up the vial.

 

He must make all things new again.

 

 

*

 

 

Daniel stretches languorously on the bed and leans into the sunbeams coming in through the open window.

 

He turns on to his back to stare at the aching blueness of the sky. For a moment the effect of the sun, so small, and the sky, so vast, makes him feel as though he is at the bottom of a well, falling, reaching for light. The sense of the endless makes him dizzy, as though he is standing on the edge of a canyon.

 

Across the room, the Tuareg guide with the striking eyes is getting dressed. Daniel watches out of the corner of his eye as swathes of indigo once more cover toned, stained skin.

 

If this is their last stop in civilisation before untold miles of desert, he intends to enjoy himself.

 

He makes no attempt to cover his nakedness, and watches the sky once more.

 

The stillness of the mid-afternoon permeates everything. It is as though the town outside the second-floor inn window is asleep. Waiting.

 

“Did you ever say why they banished you?” he says. He runs his eyes over the man's body as clothes cover it.

 

He decides to have a sip of laudanum from the medical supplies. No harm in it. He leans over to rummage through a bag.

 

The Tuareg smirks at him. “Oh, you know, maybe for helping the French. Who knows? Maybe because I’m partial to young Englishmen who ask too many questions.”

 

The French he uses is suggestive, and Daniel blushes. “No, seriously.”

 

The Tuareg shrugs, pulling back long, dark hair, to be wrapped once more. “Sometimes things are just that simple. Even when one does questionable things for the greater good.”

 

"Like fucking me?"

 

The man laughs.

 

They lapse into silence as the Tuareg battles with his headscarf. Daniel feels too awkward to ask him for his name again. Instead he turns back to contemplating the sky. The vial of laudanum he found lies on the bed, forgotten.

 

The Tuareg startles him out of his daze as he sits down on the bed.

 

“I must tell you one thing, because I have taken a liking to you,” he says.

 

Daniel raises an eyebrow, imperious.

 

“Go on.”

 

The amusement in the man’s eyes fades. “Leave those oafs to their fates. You must leave. This will not bode well – no, listen. There are rumours of The Mother's artifacts, and of the heretics who worship them. I know well enough as to what is likely false, but as to what remains…”

 

“Superstition,” Daniel says with a wave of his hand. “I’ll be forgiven if I thought you were different.”

 

The Tuareg shakes his head. “Those who have meddled in centuries past have had their legacies extinguished, to oblivion. I can take you to the area, but no further.”

 

“Legends,” Daniel retorts, but he nods. He unstoppers the vial, and enjoys the bitter smell of laudanum. He changes his mind, and stoppers it. It feels as though the Tuareg is staring right through him. He doesn’t blink as he gazes up at the sky, perhaps focusing too much on the sun. “Besides, I’m in love with oblivion.”

 

The Tuareg rises. “Then you are a fool.”

 

He leaves the room, and Daniel to his thoughts. 

 

The journey must start soon.

 

He is not sure he is ready, but for now he has the sun on his bare flesh and the vertigo of blue surrounding him, and that is good enough for him.

 

 

*

 

 

He remembers a time in the morgue, during those earlier days at Brennenburg.

 

After he began to covet, but before he dared to touch.

 

He is in the morgue, clearing up after the day’s work. He never thought he’d get used to the smell, but he never thought he’d do many things. Alexander is in the next room, preparing more vaccine.

 

Something catches his eye in the corner, small and pale, behind the pile of bare corpses.

 

He goes to inspect it.

 

He is surprised to see a bloom of perfect orchids. He stoops in front of them. They seem to be feeding only on the damp, and on blood. The flowers are robust, the leaves and petals plump.

 

After he's finished, he goes back to the main room. 

 

There, Alexander is bent over a corpse, brandishing ivory-handled implements. 

 

Daniel walks past and scrubs his hands at the washbasin. He unrolls his sleeves and watches Alexander work.

 

He is stripped down to a blood-stained shirt, one he must keep for this nature of work. His long, pale hair is tied back, with strands escaping and falling into his face. His mouth is drawn into a moue of concentration. If he has noticed Daniel, he has not given any indication. Elegant hands continue in their task.

 

Daniel wants nothing more than to brush those strands away from his face.

 

He is hardly breathing when Alexander looks up.

 

“You done? Be with you in a moment.”

 

Daniel returns the small smile aimed at him and puts his cuffs back in order.

 

“I saw the orchids. They are beautiful.”

 

“Oh yes?” Alexander mutters. He removes an implement from the corpse with a popping sound, and sets it aside. “Thank you.”

 

Daniel watches Alexander sterilise his hands and the tools with water and salts. He casts his gaze over at the suppurated corpse on the table, and thinks of the pile of bodies he’s just hauled. “It seems impossible that something of the sort should be able to grow here.”

 

Alexander runs a hand through his hair, seeming to forget that it’s tied, and makes even more of a mess of it. They are standing rather close together. Daniel notices that Alexander's gaze is sweeping over him. His face feels warm.

 

“I don’t mind saying that it was no easy task at all, Daniel. It took a long time to find the right balance of factors to cultivate them as they are.”

 

Alexander faces him. There is something new about his posture and his expression. He is astounded to realise that for all of Alexander's formidable presence and authority, they are roughly of a height.

 

“I’d like to hear all about it,” Daniel says. His voice comes out soft, yet still too loud.

 

“It’s a very long story. Come, we should both change out of this filth,” Alexander replies in kind, yet neither of them move.

 

“Then tell me all about it later,” Daniel breathes. He does not back down. The gap between them is negligible.

 

Alexander swallows, and turns him by the elbow. They start moving in the direction of the lift. Daniel is disappointed, somehow.

 

“I shall have to come back night after night for that tale. Besides, it is full of dull scientific deductions,” Alexander says, keeping his eyes ahead.

 

“You shall have to do so then. For that and other stories.”

 

Silence settles as they approach the lift. It is not uncomfortable, yet Daniel senses that Alexander is disturbed by something. He watches the Baron operate the lever, and they start moving back up.

 

Daniel breaks into laughter. Alexander raises an eyebrow. This does not manage to cover the amusement in his eyes.

 

“Dare I ask?”

 

“No, it’s…” Daniel shakes his head. “I’ve always been the one to play Scheherazade. My sister in particular, she used to like to hear my stories. I just… I don’t know. My apologies.”

 

Alexander smiles at him again, but it is such an ordinary smile that Daniel’s heart skips a beat.

 

“Am I to take it I am in further danger, then? Earning my stay of execution with my stories?”

 

They are standing close again.

 

Daniel finds a peculiar oblivion about Alexander’s eyes. They are dark in this light, in stark contrast against his hair. He can’t stop staring. He can feel his warm breath. 

 

Neither is smiling now.

 

“I suppose you would be. If you’d like.”

 

He is about to move, to do something – he doesn’t know what – and perhaps Alexander is of the same mind, but the moment is lost as the lift lurches. They spend the rest of the ride in silence, facing ahead, at an arm’s length.

 

They reach surface level.

 

 

*

 

 

There is a moment anointed by Damascus rose in which Daniel understands everything with an alarming clarity.

 

Everything.

 

Then, nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr @chanelpirate
> 
> Playlist: http://8tracks.com/chanel_pirate/the-fall-of-hyperion


End file.
